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I UNITRI) STATES OF AMERICA. J 



REVIEW 



OF 



M'^ SEWARD'S DIPLOMACY. 



BY 



A NORTHERN MAN 



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ft 



" To a people who once have been proud and great, and great because 
they were proud, a change in the national spirit is the most terrible of all 
revolutions." — Burke. 




ERRATA. 

Page 17, third line from bottom, insert "of" before "anti-slavery." 
Page 24, third line from bottom, for "enterprise" read "slaveholder. 



REVIEW OF MR. SEWARD'S DIPLOMACY. 



Mr. Lincoln, in his Message of December last, said little 
or nothing about the foreign relations of the United States. 
In general phraseology, he attributed to European Govern- 
ments unworthy motives iu the policy which he ascribed 
to them, but as to their precise relations to us, and what we 
had said or done to them, he was, if not silent, darkly 
oracular.* 

This silence of the Chief Magistrate on Foreign affairs 
was not thoughtless. It would be unjust to him to suppose 
it was. He delegated the duty to his Secretary of State, and 
hence, for the first time in the history of the United States, 
there was sent to Congress a mass of Foreign Relation corres- 
pondence — extending, if not from " China to Peru," literally 
from Japan to Chili — which, having been printed iu a huge 
book of four hundred and twenty-five pages by the Secre- 



* This was, at the time, the subject of criticism among his friends ; for one 
of the leading, most judicious, most thorough-going, and able newspapers, 
startled by the ominous omission, said : 

" We cannot avoid expressing regret that more confident phrases were not 
employed in the President's allusions to our foreign relations — not that what 
he does say is particularly despondent, but there is an absence of allusion to 
the special encouragement offered to us by many governments, which we 
regret. It may be thought of little consequence, whether the formulas of 
executive congratulation as regards foreign nations, are repeated, while we 
have so much grave matter at home to attend to, but we believe the general 
feeling would have been one of pleasure at their repetition now." — Philadelphia 
North American, Dec. 4. 

(3) 



tary himself and circulated to a certain extent, is open to 
fair and patriotic criticism. Since this volume was published, 
another instalment of diplomatic correspondence, connected 
with the sad affair of the Trent, has been given to the 
world ; and to the whole record, ending as we think it does, 
in the realization of Mr. Burke's philosophy, that the most 
terrible of revolutions is one which breaks a proud nation's 
heart, in a spirit of genuine and rational loyalty, we 
invite the attention of our readers. Philip, we are inclined 
to hope, is fast becoming sober, and will listen. 

That it is unusual, and on general principles inexpe- 
dient, with no special call on one part, and without reserve 
on the other, to lay wholesale diplomatic correspondence 
before the watching and perhaps censorious world, and 
especially the confidential instructions sent to all our 
Ministers, will hardly be disputed. There is no precedent 
for it, at home or abroad. Self-glorification, a greed 
for literary or political laurels, is, at any time, a poor 
motive. Here it is a mischievous one, and a few instances 
will show how damaging to the public service such careless 
revelations may be. 

On the 22d of June, 1861, Mr. Seward wrote a despatch 
of a most delicate nature, to Mr. Dayton, at Paris — at once 
minatory and persuasive — concluding with these words : 
"This despatch is strictly confidential." So Mr. Dayton 
had a right to think it would be, and one may imagine his 
surprise to find it so soon in print, without any call from 
Congress, or any public exigency. The assurance that a 
letter is confidential, even in private correspondence, is a 
pledge which cannot be withdrawn but by mutual consent. 
Still more sacred^should it be, when public interests are at 
stake, and when public conduct ought to be regulated by ab- 
solute confidence and good fuith. 

The remark applies with greater force to the inculpatory 
despatch of the Gth of July, 1861, in which he says to Mr. 
Dayton : "^This paper is, in one sense, a conversation 



merely, between yourself and us. It is not to he made 
public.'' Yet it, too, is spread before the world. 

Again : On the 2d of September — it was most natural 
that the Secretary should say to Mr. Adams, if such was 
the fact — "Our supplies of arras are running low." But 
one is at a loss to imagine why this destitution should be 
published to the world. 

Or again, and these instances are taken at random from 
many others, may we not be excused for doubting the ex- 
pediency, if not propriety, of giving publicity to the fact 
that information sent by Mr. Adams from London was 
used for detective police purposes in this country ? It may 
be all right to get such information, and, if a Secretary of 
State has any taste for police work, it may be all right to 
use it. But is it conducive to the public interest, or credit- 
able to the public character, or fair to a distant correspond- 
ent, to make it known ? 

A long time, some eighty-four years ago, Sir Joseph 
Yorke was shrewdly suspected of abstracting Arthur Lee's 
portfolios at the Court of Frederick the Great, and making 
himself acquainted with their contents ; but we are not 
aware that Lord North or Lord George Germaine ever pub- 
licly thanked him for his "vigilant surveillance." Not 
that it is for a moment imagined that Mr. Adams went 
to this extent of zeal, or dreamed of being thanked for 
such work, but he certainly sent home information of a 
secret nature, which was used for police purposes, and the 
fact is now revealed, for no conceivable or adequate reason, 
and must discourage him from doing it again. " While I 
regret," says Mr. Seward in the despatch now printed, 
" with you, that the administration of the laws of Great 
Britain is such as to render comparatively inelfectual your 
efforts to defeat there the designs of parties in that country 
injurious to the United States — I have great pleasure in 
saying that the information we receive from you concerning 
them is often very valuable, and enables us to put our own 



authorities here in a van of vigilant mrveiUance, which 
promises good results." 

So wrote Secretary Seward on the 14th of September : 
and it was not very long after — the 14th of October — that 
Lord Lyons sent to him the letter, in which he said: 
" So far as appears to Her Majesty's government, the Secre- 
tary of State of the United States exercises npon the reports 
of spies and informers, the power of depriving British 
subjects of their liberty, of retaining them in prison, or 
liberating them by his own will and pleasure." The letter 
now published throws a painful light on this incident, and 
somewhat explains why Lord Lj^ons' insult, (for such it 
would be to a man conscious of innocence,) was never 
resented. Mr. Seward was engaged in police duty. 

Again, and let it be borne in mind we are now only illus- 
trating the folly, or worse than follj^, of publishing these 
papers — there is a small but pregnant chapter devoted to 
our relations w^ith Austria, whose favour, possibly with a view 
to the conciliation of the Hungarians and Italians now en- 
camped on the Potomac or in Missouri, Mr. Seward seems 
especially anxious to secure. He assures Mr. Hulsemann, 
not only of his personal consideration, but especially "of 
the good will of this Government towards the Government 
of Austria;" and Mr. Jones, that it is "our purpose to cul- 
tivate the best understanding wnth all nations which respect 
our rights, as Austria does;" and Mr. Motley, as late as 
September 20th, is directed to " inform Count Rechberg, 
that the friendly sentiments of this Government towards 
Austria, remain unchanged" — and yet by the strange 
fatality which can be demonstrated to attend all Mr. Sew- 
ard's diplomacy, he (for it is his act) publishes in this 
volume, an ethnological and political essay on the Austrian 
empire, in the form of instructions to Mr. Burlingame, 
which we venture to predict will astonish Count Rechberg 
and Mr. Hulsemann, and we fear interfere with the success 
of the eminent historian of the Revolt of the Netherlands, 



ot tlie Court of His Imperial Royal Catholic Majesty. Years 
ago, Mr. Hiilsemann was justly aggrieved by being told in a 
celebrated rhetorical despatch, that "Austria was a mere 
patch on the earth's surface." He now has to learn from 
the strange publication before us, and especially from the 
following sentence, quoted literally, what sort of a ricketty 
government he represents, and that while our country is tilled 
Avith Magyars, and Jews, and Germans, every one is ashamed 
to admit he is an Austrian. In point of fact, Mr. Seward may 
be right. We repeat, we have only to do with his want of 
reticence on tender topics. Telling Mr. Burlingame (whose 
translation to China renders these psychological and ethno- 
logical hints of no value to him) that Austria is " a field for 
improvement;" that the Lombards, "whose provinces have 
recently been lost," are "more mercurial than the Ger- 
mans;" that while "an undue portion of Austria is moun- 
tainous," nowhere " does agriculture derive more wealth 
from hard soils and ungenial skies ;" he gracefully and 
agreeably says, and now publishes, and we repeat, to satisfy 
those who may pause in wonder and incredulity over some 
of the words, we quote literally : 

"Austria is not an imiquc coantry, with a homogeneous 
people. It is a combination of kingdoms, duchies, pro- 
vinces, and countries, added to each other by force, and 
subjected to an Imperial head, but remaining at the same 
time diverse, distinct and discordant. The empire is there- 
fore destitute of that element of nationality, which is essen- 
tial to the establishment of free intercourse with remote 
foreign states. We meet everywhere here, in town and 
country, Italians, Hungarians, Poles, Magyars, Jews, and 
Germans, but no one has ever seen a confessed Austrian 
amongst us."* 



^ There is no light shed by this volume on the facts connected with the 
refusal of the Austrian Court to receive Mr. Burlingame. 



But iigain — and with this, we close the chapter of minor 
criticism — indiscreet revelations are not conlined to Mr, 
Seward's own compositions, over which he may think he 
lias control, for he has published despatches from abroad 
wdiich cannot fail to annoy and embarrass our Ministers at 
the courts where, now more than ever, their position is 
critical, and hold them up to the ridicule and obloquy of 
Europe. Na}', further, these rash revelations may well 
startle our own countrymen, and Mr. Lincoln himself, 
when they discover that some of our Ministers have, at Mr. 
Seward's bidding, or at least without his rebuke, commit- 
ted the government to the policy of unconditional emanci- 
pation and wholesale abolition — not the abolition which, as 
a military necessity, is supposed to march in the van or follow 
in the desolate track of armies — but sentimental abolition — 
Exeter-Hall, New York-Tabernacle abolition. We have 
room here but for a single instance of unhappy and 
mischievous disclosure, and we make it from a tiiost re- 
markable despatch from Mr. Cassius M. Clay, dated at St. 
Petersburg, 21st June, 1861, of which we can only say 
that we scarcely dare ask our readers to credit our cita- 
tions, and beg them to verify what we quote by reference 
to the originals, should those ordered by Congress ever 
be printed. In this despatch, he narrates his being pre- 
sented to the Emperor at Peterhoff by the master of 
ceremonies, "who is the regular introducer," and the 
further facts that "twice the Czar shook hands with him;" 
that he compared him to Peter the Great ; and then adds 
that the Emperor told him: "in addition to all former ties, 
we are bound together by a common cause of emancipa- 
tion," "He wanted to know if I thought England would 
interfere? I told him we did not care what she did." 
" The Emperor seemed to like my defiance of old John 
Bull very much ;" and Mr. Clay's despatch concludes with a 
passage on which no other comment is necessary than this, 
that while we may not w^onder at such vulgar nonsense 



bein<!: written, we thought there was discretion enough in 
the ohl clerks at what Mr. Seward somewhere describes as 
"the modest little State Department," to prevent it being 
published. 

"I have already," writes Mr. Clay, "made this letter too 
long, but I cannot conclude without saying how much more 
and more I value the great and inestimable blessings of our 
Government, and how I trust in God that no compromise 
will be made of the great idea for which we have so long 
fought, but that General Scott, following out the programme 
of Mr. Lincoln's inaugural, will slowly and surely subdue 
the rebellion, ' stock, lock and gun-barrel,' ' hook, line and 
bob-sinker.' " 

One might pause and smile, were it not the hour of our 
country's agony and our country's shame, at such ineffable 
trash as this, thus written and thus proclaimed. But it is 
too solemn for levity. 

And can it be possible, the reader may well ask, that 
there is not injustice in imputing these discreditable revela- 
tions to the desire of self-glorification in a single man ? 
There is no wish to do wrong to anybody, least of all to the 
distinguished official who, so long as the endurance of the 
people and the amiable credulity of the Chief Magistrate 
continue, must be looked on as our "organ" in the foreign 
relations of the country, but there is proof, abundant and 
conclusive, on these pages, that no other or higher motive 
could have led to the publication. There is a mischievous 
egotism throughout, which tells its own tale. Mr, Lincoln 
has not yet discovered the extent of the restless ambition 
that stirs the heart of his Foreign Secretary. He certainly 
had not, when he consented to be measurably silent on 
foreign affairs, and relegated them, with all their glories, to 
Mr. Seward. 

Mr. Seward evidently thinks that a Secretary of State is, 
in the parlance of other countries, a "Prime Minister," a 
"Premier," a "First Lord of the Treasury," and that a 



10 

Prime Minister is something in foreign affairs which absorbs 
or controls all governmental functions. This un-American, 
unconstitutional theory crops out very often in this vol- 
ume of his pet despatches. He is singularly fond of the 
magnificent first person plural — that pseudo-modest pronoun 
which kings and queens and critics and newspaper editors, 
and sometimes pamphleteers, indulge in. Most Secretaries 
in writing, say, "The President instructs me," "It is the 
wish of the President," etc. This is the safe, modest 
language of routine, but Mr. Seward soars fjir beyond the 
stretch of decorous red tape, and tairly revels in "we" and 
"our." "The opinions," he writes to Mr. Adams, "you 
expressed on these matters, etc., are just, and meet our 
approbation." "Our" instructions is a common phrase. 
There is a little doubtful grammar in the following sentence 
in a despatch to Mr. Dayton, but the pronoun has its usual 
prominence : " The despatches of your predecessor, Koa. 
117, 119 and 120, have been received ; the latter, (?) ac- 
knowledging the receipt of our letter, requires no special 
notice." And so throughout, until Mr. Seward's theory of 
'■'■L'etat, c'est m.oi" freely translated, culminates in a despatch 
to Mr. Marsh, of the 9th of May, where, either purposely 
or from grammatical confusion, he leaves it doubtful who 
constitutes the Sovereign of Italy, the King or Count 
Cavour, though with an evident leaning to the side of the 
Prime Minister. We note among the few instances in 
which the President is not eclipsed by the Secretary, one 
on which we may well pause in wonder and regret ; for 
while no other Minister is equally honoured in these 
despatches, we learn that the one so distinguished cannot be 
induced to remain at his post. " These thoughts," says 
Mr. Seward to Mr. Carl Schurz, " are presented to you by 
direction of the President, not as exhausting the subject, but 
only as suggestions to your own vigorous and comprehen- 
sive mind, and he confidently relies on your a[)plying all 
its powers to the full discussion of the subject, if it shall 



11 

become necessury." If in the lacunae wliicli follow this 
special compliment to Mr. Carl Schurz, there are hidden 
stronger expressions of confidence and affection on the part 
of the Chief Magistrate, the country may well regret that 
Mr. Schurz no longer represents us at the Court of Her 
Most Catholic Majesty. 

Assuming, then, that the authorship of this volume was 
meant to be claimed as one of the literary and political 
trophies of the Secretary of State, we venture, with the 
deference due to a high official, and a reserve prompted by 
considerations of personal safety, to consider, from a literary 
and a political point of view, the papers themselves. 

First, of their literarj^ merits. 

In the name of American scholarship and taste, which we 
may be permitted to hope survive, in spite of the newspa- 
pers and magazines we read, we protest against Mr. Seward 
being taken as the representative of American scholars, or 
his crude and tawdry effusions as fair specimens of Ameri- 
can writing. If we had to choose, we much prefer the 
homely, honest style of the President, no doubt characteristic 
of the man and of his social meridian, through which a 
meaning struggles for expression, to the ambitious, affected, 
bungling rhetoric of the Secretary. When, in spite of 
clumsy syntax, an idea is visible, we rest content ; but when 
one reads a sentence, or a series of sentences, technically 
correct and elaborately adorned, and finds no light or glimpse 
of meaning, the very accuracy and finish make the disap- 
pointment sharper. When Mr. Lincoln speaks of the doc- 
trine of rebellion being "sugar-coated," we smile at the 
illustration, but accept it ; but when, scorning all Saxon 
phrase, Mr. Secretary Seward writes to Mr. Burlingame, 
"that Austria is not an unique country," or that, "in the 
intercourse of nations, each must be assumed by every other 
to choose and will what it maintains, tolerates or allows," 
or that " sedition has begun its incubation," or that " we 
are so sound, so vigorous, and so strong;" or when writing 



/ 



12 

to Mr. Iliirrls at Yedo, he says : " I liavc lost no time in 
assuring the British Government directly of the willingness 
of the United States to co-operate with it in any judicious 
measure it may suggest to insure safety hereafter to diplo- 
matic and consular representatives of the Western Powers 
in Japan, with due respect to the sovereignties, on whose 
behalf their exposure to such grave perils is incurred ;" or 
writing to Nicaragua, he talks of the " virgin domain of 
Spanish America," and "the listless nations of the East;" 
or when writing to Mr. Marsh, at Turin, he assures him 
"that war cannot be waged successfully, without wisdom 
as well as patriotism ;" or to the same gentleman, (an edu- 
cated man, to whom such suggestions were hardly necessary,) 
that "Botta and De Tocqueville" are clever writers, or 
that "faction is incident to every state, because it is inhe- 
rent in human nature," or that the American people "are 
aroused, awakened, resolute and determined," or that time 
was needed "to eliminate the disunionists from high posi- 
tion ;" or to Mr. King, that the United States are like ancient 
Rome, "because they are on the verge of civil war;" or to 
Mr. Schurz, that Spanish intervention would be " an epi- 
sode" of the war, or that "Iler Majesty's obligations shall 
be meliorated," and those of the United States "similarly 
meliorated;" or that the articles of the Declaration of Paris 
are "benignant," or that "the fountains of discontent are 
many, and some lie much deeper than others," with the 
remarkable historical statement, over which De Tocqueville 
might pause in perplexity, "that it was foreign intervention 
which opened, and that alone could open similar fountains 
in the memorable French Revolution ;"* that the " trans- 



* Mr. Seward is not very precise or accurate in either geography or history. 
Witness his description of the British Colonial Empire, as "extending from 
Gibraltar, through the West Indies and Canada, till it begins again on the 
southern extremity of Africa;" and the historical rf«c/a that "armed insur- 
rections to overturn the Oovernment are frequent in Great Britain;" that 



13 

action now goins; on in onr own country involves the pro- 
gress of civilization and humanity, and that our attitude in 
it is right;" that "domestic commotion has ripened into a 
vast transaction;" or writing to the Minister in Switzer- 
land, he exhorts him " to improve the calmness and candour 
which the contemplation of nature inspires, to dissuade the 
American from his unnatural course and pernicious convic- 
tions," and to excite the loyal to return home as speedily 
as possible, to speak, to vote, and, if need be, to enrol him- 
self as a soldier or sailor, in the land or naval forces, for the 
defence of the country, of freedom, and of mankind !" or 
when he tells Mr. Schurz that his speech to the Queen of 
Spain was "discreet in its points and felicitous in its ex- 
pression;" or when linally, in the instructions to Mr. 
Cassius Clay, the Secretary reaches a climax of mysterious 
rhetoric, and announces a great ethnological and geographi- 
cal truth, in these words, quoted, we assure the reader, 
literally: "Russia and the United States may remain good 
friends, until each, having made the circuit of half the 
globe in opposite directions, they shall meet and greet each 
other in the region where civilization first began, and where, 
after so many ages, it ha? become now lethargic and help- 
less." When, we repeat, one has to wade through unne- 
cessary and grotesque platitudes such as these, silly and 
inappropriate anywhere, but never so much so as in what 
purport to be State papers, we revolt, and gratefully take 
refuge in Mr. Lincoln's awkward grammar, and clumsy but 
honest idioms. 



"most of the wars in modern times have been insurrectionary wars;" that 
<' the Government of the Netherlands is probably an ally of Japan;" or, 
lastly, his singular obliviousness of the history of his own country, and of 
what Silas Deane and Dr. Franklin and the Lees and John Adams were sent 
to do and did, in Europe, eighty years ago, when he writes to Mr Schurz that 
" it seems the necessity of faction in every country, that whenever it acquires 
sufficient boldness to inaugurate revolution, it forgets alike the counsels of 
prudence, and stifles the instincts of patriotism, and becomes a suitor to 
foreign courts for aid and assistance," &c. 



14 

Nay, further. Mr. ScwurcVs vicious style has what law- 
yers call an inheritable and transferable quality. His son, 
the Assistant Secretary, writes, if possible, worse than the 
father, and one need only refer to Mr. Clay's despatches 
from Russia, Mr. Fogg's marvellous speeches in Switzer- 
land, and Mr. Perry's letters from Spain, to see with what 
fidelity the wretched rhetoric of the Secretary is reflected 
by his subordinates. Mr. Frederick W. Seward writes to 
Mr. Adams, on the 27th of August, that "the capital is 
beyond danger, and forces are accumulating, and taking on 
qualities which will render them invincible.'' "The senti- 
ment of disunion," he adds, "is losing its expansive force, 
and every day grows weaker as a physical power." Mr. 
Fogg, in addressing the President of the Swiss Confedera- 
tion, says : " There are crises in the lives of nations, as well 
as of individuals. Switzerland has had her crisis. The 
United States has had her crises. When Washington led 
her brave sons to maintain her right to be one of the 
nations of the world, then was her crises. Her second 
great crisis is now. This crisis shall be decided for liberty," 
&c.; and Mr. Horatio Perry tells the Secretary that "seces- 
sion is fiHibustering struck in," and that there is a class of 
men in the South known as " mean whites." 

Let no one suppose that this terrible deterioration in the 
style of State papers is of little moment. A master of 
vigorous English writing long ago said that the decrepitude 
of language, in a nation's public utterajices, is a fatal sign ; 
and we have lately somewhere seen the striking and truthful 
remark that a debased tone in public documents is a preg- 
nant symptom of political disease.''' So, we feel it to be, 
with this volume before us. So, foreign and censorious 
nations will regard it ; and the humbling contrast, in this 
very article of literary merit, between Mr. Seward and all 



* Walter Savas;e Landor. 



15 

of his predecessors, from the time of General Washington's 
administration, is too palpable to be overlooked. Every 
Secretary of State who has left a name in our histor^^, 
wrote vigorous, characteristic English, modified in mere 
rhetorical completeness, by difference of culture. It is only 
necessary to call the roll of the eminent men who have 
conducted the foreign policy of this Government from 1789 
to this moment to understand this, and to see that, until 
Mr. Seward "assumed the seals," there was not one who 
did not appear to advantage, by contrast or comparison 
with the most accomplished statesmen on the other side of 
the Atlantic. They were Jefferson, Edmund Randolph, 
Pickering, Marshall, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Clay, Van 
Buren, Louis M'Lane, Forsyth, Webster, Upshur, Calhoun, 
Buchanan, Clayton, Everett, Marcy, Cass, and Black ; and 
if, taking an illustration from the very volume before us, 
any one yet doubts how far below the standard Mr. Seward, 
as a writer, is, let him compare all or any of his despatches 
with the one from Secretary Black, of the 28th February, 
1801, now published, in which, with precision and clearness, 
without pretension or affectation, but directly and earnestly, 
he calls the attention of our Ministers abroad to the great 
social and political convulsion then felt to be imminent, and 
prescribes their duty. The great secret, said the poet 
Gray, of study, and he might have added of composition, 
is "never to fling away your time in reading inferior 
authors, but to keep your mind in contact with master 
spirits;" in plain English, to avoid low company. Mr. 
Seward writes like a man who has been reading newspapers 
and associating with half-educated politicians all his life, and 
the character of American scholarship suffers, by his being 
thought to be its representative. 

Passing all this b}^, we approach the substance of these 
despatches— the diplomatic conduct of Mr. J.incoln's cabi- 
net—and we undertake to demonstrate that it has been, so 
far at least as the action of the State Department is involved, 



16 

a total failure, ending, as we fear is the case, either in a 
foreign embroilment on false principles, or, what is worse, 
in degradation by unmanly and inappropriate concessions. 
This is strong language, but unless our estimate of the 
■evidence before us be wholly erroneous, quite warranted 
by the truth. 

Let us for a moment look a little into the recent past. 

Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated on the 4th of March, 1861, 
and Mr. Sev/ard became at once Secretary of State. His 
first despatch bears date the 9th of March, being a circular 
to all the Ministers of the United States abroad, containing 
the assurance that " the President entertains a full confi- 
dence in the speedy restoration of the harmony and the 
unity of the Government." Mr. Black had said the same 
thing ten days before. 

From the 4th of March to the fall of Fort Sumter on the 
13th of April, the secession, or revolt, or rebellion, (we do 
not pause to quarrel with names or nicknames,) had extended 
to but seven States. All as far south as North Carolina and 
Tennessee were in the Union, and faithful to it. The Peace 
Congress had just adjourned; the Corwin Constitutional 
Amendment was just adopted; the vote of North Carolina 
had been adverse to a convention ; Virginia, and Kentucky, 
and Maryland, and Tennessee, had given no sign of dis- 
loyalty. 

Then it was that the President made his diplomatic 
appointments, and made, be it remembered, not one from 
the slaveholding or moderate States, except Mr. Cassius M. 
Clay, an avowed and extreme, and we believe, conscientious 
jibolitionist. All the Union men in the doubtful States 
were proscribed in this distribution of what may be described 
as the conlidential and complimentary patronage of the 
Government, and instead of them, there were sent abroad to 
represent us, at this " crisis " of our destiny, with the excep- 
tion of England, France and Italy, whither men of capacity 
and education were sent, a crowd of obscure and untrained 



17 

men, fanatical stump speakers and newspaper purveyors, 
from the North, exclusively, whose very names (the Pikes, 
and Foggs, and Judds,) remind one of the grotesque nomen- 
clature of one of Mr. Dickens' novels, and whose performan- 
ces are recorded in the volume before us. There seemed to 
be a studied insult to the moderate slaveholding States. A 
correspondent or semi-editor of the New York Tribune was 
sent to Holland, and to Spain, the most conservative, 
religious, and perhaps bigoted court of Europe, was sent a 
German adventurer (the word is not used in an offensive 
sense), who, but a few months before, in a reported speech, 
had said to the South : " When all mankind rejoice, you 
tremble. What all mankind love, you hate. There is not 
a man in the South, wdio if he can bye-and-bye, raise from 
the dead, will not gladly exchange his epitaph for the 
meanest of John Brown's followers."* 

Nor was this unadvised; the Secretary of State, in one of 
his speeches during the political canvass, had forshadowed 
it, by saying, (vi^hat almost in terms, he repeats more than 
once in these papers,) that, as the Courts of Europe had 
heretofore, and especially during Mr. Buchanan's adminis- 
tration, beentilledby Southern men and advocates of slavery, 
the new era was to be marked by the choice of those who 
would unite in the general reprobation of slavery, all over 
the civilized \vorld. The selection as ambassadors, anti- 
slavery agitators, and the proscription of all the moderate 
South, was therefore not accidental. f 

* Among Mr. Lincoln's ambassadors, no one appears to more advantage in 
this volume than Mr. James E. Harvey, Avho attends to his duties quietly and 
writes tolerably good English. Wo note in one insiance, a rather plaintive 
allusion to the trouble he encountered on the threshold of his functions, when 
he was defamed and threatened with sharp penalties, for doing the bidding of 
his superiors. 

fSo far as Mr. Buchanan's administration was affected by Mr. Seward's 
assertion, that Southern or pro-slavery men were sent as ministers abroad, it 
is simply untrue. Of the twelve leading European Missions, seven wore filled 
by gentlemen from the Northern States, four from the border States, and but 
one (Russia) by an extreme Southern man, and he (Mr. Pickens, of South 
Carolina,) was Muoceeded by Mr. Appleton, of Maine. 



18 

Having so dclegaiod these trusts, Mr. Seward set himsell'at 
work to instruct his agents in their peculiar work, and the 
first division of this volume of despatches, in character, if 
not in order of time, comprises those instructions — such, 
we mean, as, either prepared before the fall of Sumter, or 
afterwards, have relation to other topics than the disruption 
of the Union. 

Mr. Seward has often said, in season and out of season, 
that negro slavery is the canker of our institutions. He and 
his school have so irritated, and worried, and inflamed it, 
that they have made it a terrible and wasting affliction. It 
was hardly to be expected, therefore, that when he became, 
in his own estimation at least, the nation's "Premier," 
and exponent of the views and policy of the Federal Gov- 
ernment, that he should retract the opinions of a tolerably 
long life, however offensive, on this one topic, or shun the 
opportunity, from a new pulpit, to preach them to what he 
lioped to be the admiring and sympathetic congregation of 
the civilized world. Accordingl\-, we find in these de- 
spatches, not a few specimens of abolition propagandism, 
though it is fair to say, not as many as we looked for from 
the antecedents of the writer, and that he very soon dropped 
the subject, on finding that foreign statesmen had no incli- 
nation to trouble themselves about it, and could not be 
seduced into sentimentalism on the subject of the African, 
at a time when they had other things, practically, to deal 
with. It is curious to observe how little encouragement 
Mr, Seward received on this thesis. In his instructions to 
Mr. Adams and Mr. Judd, the only ones written before the 
fall of Sumter, he says nothing about slavery, but on the 
'22d of April, it breaks forth in a formal despatch to Mr. 
Dayton, in Paris, and the whole topic of slavery in the 
Territories, and the intiuence of slavery in the Government, 
is discussed either for the enlightenment of a gentleman, 
once a Senator and to be supposed familiar with our elemen- 
tary history, or for that of the Imperial Government, to 



19 

which he was accredited. One is really at a h)ss to imagine 
to what end this inajjpropriate tirade was printed; but it is 
due, as well to the distinguished and discreet gentleman 
who represents us at Paris, as to the Imperial Foreign Min- 
ister, to say that neither took the slightest notice of the 
Secretary's anti-slavery homily, or even encouraged or 
permitted the subject to be discussed or alluded to between 
them. The whole bearing of Mr. Dayton on this, and, as 
will be seen, on another subject, was that of an American 
gentleman, who shrank from the humiliation of exhibiting 
our lazar sores (as Mr. Seward, if he is consistent, must 
think them) to the Courts of Europe.* 

But the Secretary had instruments elsewhere, suited to 
his purpose. They were Mr. Cassius Clay in Russia, Mr. 
Fogg and Mr. Fay in Switzerland, Mr. Pike at the Hague, 
and, we regret to say, Mr. Marsh at Turin. The only two 
Europeans who seem to have referred to American 
slavery, were the Emperor of Russia, if we understand Mr. 
Clay's grotesque report, and the Baron Ricasoli, the Italian 
or Sardinian Prime Minister, who told our Minister that he 
hoped the authority of the Union would be re-established, 
on terms which would secure the triumph of the principles 
of freedom, and "the ultimate extinction of liuman slavery," 
It was in communicating this that Mr. Marsh, true to his 
ITew England origin, said to the Secretary: 

"The favorable sentiments with which the present ad- 
ministration of the Federal Government is regarded by most 
continental statesmen, are founded, (independently of the 
high personal regard felt for the President and his constitu- 
tional advisers) partly on the opinion that he is sustaining the 



* "If humiliation is the element in which we live, if it is become not only 
our occasional policy, but our habit, no great objection can be made to the 
modes in which it may be diversified ; though, I confess, I cannot be charmed 
with the idea of our exposing our lazar sores where the court dogs will not 
deign to lick them." — Letter on a Regicide Peace, p. 3G1. 



20 

cause of constitutional authority, of the entirety of nationali- 
ties, and of established order, against causeless rebellion, 
violent disruption of a commonwealth essentially a unit, 
and disorganizing and lawless misrule; but still more I 
think, on the belief that the struggle in which it was in- 
volved is virtually a contest between the propagandists of 
domestic slavery and the advocates of emancipation and 
universal freedom. If the civil war be protracted, I am 
convinced that our hold upon the sympathy and good-will 
of the Governments, and still more of the people of Europe, 
will depend upon the distinctness with which this issue is 
kept before them ; and if it were now proposed by the 
Federal Government to purchase the submission of the 
South, by any concession to their demands on this subject, 
or by assuming any attitude but that of, at least, moral hos- 
tility to slavery, I have no doubt that the dissolution of the 
Union would be both desired and promoted by a vast ma- 
jority of those who now hope for its perpetuation." 

In Switzerland and Holland, the attempt to intrude aboli- 
tion signally failed. It was to Switzerland that Mr. Seward 
addressed some of the highest strains of his exaggerated 
rhetoric, "Human nature," says he, writing to Minister 
Fogg, " must lose not only the faculty of reason, which lifts 
it above the inferior beings, but also the benevolence, which 
lifts it up to commune with superior orders of existence, 
when the security, welfare and happiness of the United 
Slates shall have become a matter of indifference to Italy 
or Switzerland. I salute Switzerland last among the Euro- 
pean nations, only because we esteem and confide in her 
the most." And then, in a more subdued and practical 
tone, he hints to the Minister, whom we take to be an 
author, how, in the leisure of his Alpine seclusion, he may 
profitably occupy his time. " We very much want a good 
history of the Swiss Confederacy, since its reformation, 
especially showing how faction developes itself there, and 
how the Government works in preventing or suppressing 



21 

designs subversive of thc^^federal unity of the] republic. The 
President hopes you will furnish it, as he knows your ability 
for such a task." Thus instructed, Mr. Fogg reachedjBerne, 
finding there Mr. Theodore Fay, a gentleman who had been 
long abroad as a representative of Democratic administra- 
tions, and who seems disposed to retain official functions if 
it can be done by propitiating a different school of politics. 

"My resignation," said Mr. Fay, in his address to the 
President of the Confederation, " has not resulted from 
difference of opinion with the President of the United 
States. Our country is now occupied in a struggle with au 
institution as unmanageable as the hydra of Hercules. It 
is not my wish to misrepresent the proprietors of slaves. 
Many of them are sincere, Christian gentlemen. But the 
institution, in its present form, is irreconcilable with our 
national existence, with the religious sentiment of the 
majority, and with the Word of God. Ifothing can be 
clearer than the right and duty of the American people to 
protect themselves from its uncontrolled development, and 
from being drawn downwards in their career of political 
and religious civilisation. Man should not live by bread 
alone, nor by cotton alone !" 

After Mr. Fogg had added something in the same strain, 
President Knuesel replied with dignity and precision, re- 
ciprocating the kind feeling of the outgoing and incoming 
Ministers, and their Government, but remaining reso- 
lutely silent on the domestic grievance so inappropriately 
introduced. A sharp critic might detect in the President's 
language ideas with reference to Confederated States, which 
have more the ring of Richmond than of Washington. 
" Switzerland," said the President. " from the sincere 
sympathy which she has for the welfare of the Union, looks 
with anxiety upon the issue of events which now shake this 
country. Switzerland passed through a similar crisis, four- 
teen years ago, which threatened to tear asunder the then 
loose connexion of the twenty-two cantons. But renewed 



22 

rose the present Confederation from that tempest; strength- 
ened internally and abroad, she now stands there esteemed 
by the nations. May God grant that the connexion of the 
States of the United States of America may also emerge, 
renewed and strengthened, out of this crisis."* 

But it was in Holland that the anti-slavery agitation was 
most boldly attempted, and most signally failed, i^owhere 
could it have been more inappropriate, the I^^etherlands 
having colonies, in the West if not in the East, v.^here slavery 
in a modified form yet exists, and is likely to continue, 
notwithstanding a promise to abolish it two years hence. 
At the Hague, the United States was represented, during 
Mr. Buchanan's Administration, by a gentleman whom this 
correspondence shows to be a man of sense and <liscretion, 
and whose conduct seems to have extorted expressions of 
confidence from those who certainly show no good will to 
any one whom the late President trusted or appointed. He 
honestly tells the truth, however unpalatable, and, looking 
at what was the state of things in May, and now, one is 
startled at what was said of the inclination and prescience 
of the Dutch Government. 

" It is not to be disguised," writes Mr. Murphy, on the 
27th of May, 1861, "that public sentiment here is much 
more favorable to the seceding States than it has been. 
The message of Mr. Davis, recently delivered to the Con- 
gress of those States, has been extensively published here, 
in substance, not at full length, and has had much influ- 
ence on the question, from the specious ground of the 



* Mr. Fay's abolitionism seems to have won Mr. Fogg's heart. He writes 
to the Secretary, on the 8th of July, 1861 : " Thoroughly sympathising with 
the principles and purposes of the present Administration of the United States 
Government, and possessing large experience and an enviable reputation in 
Europe, I trust it may not be deemed impertinent in me to express the hope 
that the State Department will not be a long time in finding some field where 
his familiarity with international and diplomatic affairs will be a necessity to 
the Government." 



28 

Union being a mere coufedcrution of independent States. 
Besides, Holland, or the Netherlands, has had a bitter 
lesson of experience, under sin\ilar circiinistances. The 
rebellion of Belgium, in 1830, was resisted with all the 
power of this Government, which would probably have 
succeeded in crushing it, if England and France had not 
interfered, and the immense public debt with which this 
country is oppressed, was then mostly incurred, while Bel- 
gium was, notwithstanding, lost. Reasoning from this 
point of view, there are not a few who regard the present 
position of the Uni4:ed States an expensive and useless 
eiFort." 

Mr. James S. Pike, of the staif, we believe, of the N"ew 
York 'i'ribune, succeeded Mr. Murphy, and in his first 
official interview, informed the Butch Minister of Foreign 
Afi:airs, "that the rebellion in America was merely a war in 
behalf of the African slavery, and that if we had no slavery, 
we should have no war and no rebellion. The Union of 
the States can be maintained, whenever the Government 
sees fit to render the institutions of the several States homo- 
geneous ; for when thej^ were once made free States, there 
would be no wish to separate, and no tendency to separa- 
tion." ISTo answer of sympathy being made to this, on the 
11th of September, Mr. Pike addressed an elaborate com- 
munication to the Dutch Government, on the subject of the 
visit of the Sumter at Curacoa. from which we quote a pas- 
sage of acrid, and, as the result shows, most unwelcome 
dogmatism. 

"By doing so," (conceding belligerent rights to tha Con- 
federate States,) "this Government may make an enemj^ of 
the United States, through the consequences growing out 
of that act. But Holland Avill not thereby make a friend of 
the rash and misguided men, who lead the rebellion against 
the American Government. For their object is to extend 
and perpetuate African slavery. With this object, Holland 
can have no sympathy. Your Government has just now 



24 

determined to abolish that remnant of barbarism in your 
colonial possessions." " The slave-holders' rebellion cannot 
be successful. The United States has determined it shall 
not be, and it will preserve the Union of States at whatever 
cost. But even if we admit, for argument's sake, that some 
of the slave-holding States should be allowed hereafter to 
depart from the Union, still would the rebellion be unsuc- 
cessful in its objects, and hospitality (sic) shown to its pro- 
gress be unavailing. The United States would still be resolute 
to defeat the purposes of the rebel slave-holder. They 
would do this by their own unaided eflbrts. They might 
readily co-operate with foreign powers to the same end. 
Such of those powers as hold possessions in America, 
wherein slavery has been abolished, would join in this ob- 
ject from motives of justice and humanity, as well as from 
considerations of policy and consistency. * * ^ com- 
mon civilization throughout the world will look with tavor 
on a common Union to crush the offeusive purposes of the 
rebellious slave-holder. His success, therefore, is out of 
the question. Unless the world is to go backward, and 
history reverse its lessons, this rebellion in its leading pur- 
pose, is foredoomed. Even Governments cannot save that 
against which humanity revolts. Surrounded by commu- 
nities on the North, on the South, on the West, that have 
expelled slavery; the islands of the Carribean Sea, nearly 
all emancipated from this pestilent system; the fabric of 
the rebellious slave-holder, which he is so madly ambitious 
to erect, were even its temporary establishment possible, 
would soon be washed away by the attrition of surrounding 
influence upon its crumbling foundations, and its remains 
left a ruin in the world. It is thus neither just nor politic, 
in any point of view, for the powers of Ij^urope to do any- 
thing to encourage this abortive and criminal enterprise of 
the rebellious American ®«4ei'pFise.".. 

A diplomatic correspondence thus begun could end in no 
good, and an examination of this part of the volume will 



show the reader tliat it resulted in a failure to extort the 
practical redress which was sought iu the case of the Con- 
federate privateer, and exposed our representative to a 
rebuke, not the less severe because it was administered with 
dignified moderation. 

" It is needless," says Baron Van Zuylen to Mr. Pike, on 
the l-5th of October, 1861, "to add that the Cabinet of the 
Hague will not depart from the principles mentioned at the 
close of my reply of the 17th September, of which you 
demand the application; it does know and will know how 
to act in conformity with the obligations of impartiality 
and of neutrality, without losing sight of the care for its 
own dignity. 

" Called by the confidence of the King to maintain that 
dignity, to defend the rights of the crown, and to direct the 
relations of the state with foreign powers, I know not how 
to conceal from you, sir, that certain expressions in your 
communications above mentioned, have caused an un- 
pleasant impression on the King's Government, and do not 
appear to me to correspond with the manner in which I 
have striven to treat the question now under discussion, or 
with the desire which actuates the Government of the 
Netherlands to seek for a solution perfectly in harmony 
with its sentiments of friendship towards the United States, 
and with the observance of treaties. 

" The feeling of distrust which seems to have dictated 
your last despatch of the 18th of this month, and which 
shows itself especially in some entirely erroneous apprecia- 
tions of the conduct of the Government of the Netherlands, 
gives to the last, strong in its good faith and in its friendly 
intentions, just cause for astonishment. So, then, the 
Cabinet, of which I have the honor to form part, deems 
that it may dispense with undertaking a justification, useless 
to all who examine impartially and without passion, the 
events which have taken place." 

Such seems to have been the failure of Mr. Seward's 
4 



26 

diplomacy in tlie minor or more remote courts of tlie Old 
World, and we now turn with deeper and more anxious 
interest to the illustration of what he has done or tried, or 
failed to do, in his relation to the two great Powers of 
Western Europe, on wdiose mere will, at the moment these 
w^ords are written, depend the great issues of war or 
peace. 

We desire to consider these without reference to the 
Trent complication, though, for the full comprehension of 
the stupendous folly, the worse than blindness to sure reali- 
ties, of publishing these papers, it must be borne in mind 
that the news of Captain Wilkes' feat reached this country 
on the 16th November; that Mr. Seward's precautionary 
letter about it, to Mr. Adams, was written on the 30th ; 
and that tl.ese papers were not communicated to Congress 
till the 3d of December, the date of the President's message. 
They were therefore deliberately published to the world 
after the news of the new difficulty had reached Washing- 
ton. Mr. Seward desires the British Government to look 
at the Trent affair (serious enough, one would think, by 
itself,) in the light shed by these disclosures. It may at 
least be said that they do not invigorate friendly feeling. 
There is a whistling sort of defiance in this publication^ 
wdiich is very characteristic. 

There are, in onr poor opinion, two delusions under which 
the Secretary of State entered upon the duties of his high 
office, and of Avhich he has probably never rid himself. If 
not delusions, they are ignorances. One is a belief that 
Great Britain and France, especially the former, are ani- 
mated by secret hostility to us, and a desire to see this 
Union fall in ruins. The other, an absolute unconscious- 
ness of the close relation actually subsisting, socially, eco- 
nomically and politically, between the two countries, and a 
self-complacent notion that, by some dexterous diplomacy 
— some smart device — some adroit appeal to ancient ani- 
mosity — this close relation can be severed. 



27 

That we may not do injustice, let lis quote Mr, ScAvard's 
well considered words. On the 15th of May he addressed 
a despatch to the Minister in Switzerland, from which we 
have already made an extract, in which he said: "I can 
easily imagine that either Great Britain, France, Russia, 
Austria, Prussia, Belgium, Spain, or even Denmark, might 
even imagine that it could require some advantage, or at 
least some satisfaction to itself, from a change that should 
abridge the dominion, the commerce, the prosperity or in- 
fluence of the United States, each of them might be supposed 
to have envious sentiments toimrds us, ichich vouM delight in an 
ojyportiinit)/ to do us hemn." The italics are our own, but 
whether read with or without emphasis, the words show^ the 
predominant thought of the writer, and it requires a very 
slight collation of other portions of this volume to prove 
that the suspicion is intensified in relation to Great Britain, 
and hangs like a cloud over the darkened intelligence of 
the Secretary, from tirst to hist. 

ISTow we do not hesitate, drawing our convictions from 
large and varied intercourse and correspondence with indi- 
viduals of difterent classes, pursuits and political opinions, 
to say that never was there greater injustice, or a more 
vulgar prejudice, than to attribute liostile feeling or hostile 
action to English statesmen during the anxious months 
that elapsed from the fall of Sumter to the capture of the 
Trent. AVe do not overrate the friendliness. We simply 
deny, and cannot see the evidence of, the hostility. An 
eminent British statesman, half a century ago, said that ro- 
mantic sentiment among nations was impracticable, and we 
do not, in attributing to Great Britain a friendly sympathy 
Avith our sorrows, mean to exaggerate a sentiment.* It is 
the simple truth, according to the light and experience the 
writer of these pages has, that every public man in Eng- 
land, of high intelligence, whether he be a Bright man, or a 



L.n-.l Uroy's siK-cfli on Spaiii-^li A^;lil■^; in ]S10. 



Berbyite, ur ji Whig, or a frieiid of Jjord I'aliiierston, wluif- 
ever may be his abstract satisfaction at the faikire of a 
theory of government, looks npon the clo^^•nfa!l of the 
Federal Union, as it used to be, with its constitutional 
restraints and integrity, with sorrow, and u}»on the bloody 
civil war with horror. The '■'■■projice tela mami, sanguis meus" 
of Lord Chatham was on the lips of all who spoke.* I^o 
pen wrote other words than those of sorrow. That this 
sympathy and kind feeling have been chilled from time to 
time, is true enough. That England and Englishmen saw 
with wonder at least six of the seven institutions of civil 
libert}' which, according to Mr. Sumner's last speech, Eng- 
land gave to us, trampled under foot. — personal liberty, 
judicial authority, freedom of the press — given up without 
a murmur. t That she hears with w^onder eminent jurists, 
on a question of Habeas Corpus, renounce English analogy ; 
that she" sees in the ISTorth, where the Federal Constitution 
is claimed to exist, men arbitrarily imprisoned and coolly 
discharged, and the spirit of the victim so crushed and 
impoverished that it fears to seek redress ; that England 
and Englishmen see all this with affection and confidence 
abated, is certainly and lamentably true, but it was not so 
when Mr. Lincoln became President last March, and Mr. 
Seward began despatch-writing. Li spite of all, the kind 



* Lord Chatham's speech, January 20, 1775. 

+ On the 8th of .June, 1801, Mr. Seward wrote to Mr. Adams, "We honor 
and respect the freedom of debate and the freedom of the press. We indulge 
no apprehensions of danger to our rights or interests from any discussion to 
which they may be subjected in either form, or any place!" And to Mr. 
Schurz, he said, " The Spanish government knows that the several States 
which constitute the Federal Union can respectively practice tyranny or 
oppression upon individual citizens, and may even hinder and embarrass the 
general Government, while, on the other liand, that Government being armed 
with only a few though very important, powers, needful for pi'cserving domestic 
peace and defence against Foreign nations, can neither oppress, nor impoverish, 
nor annoy any member of the Union, or ani/ j)rivate citizen.''' 



2n 



teeriuu' still exists, and no one can (}»assing by iutlannnatury 
editoi-ials, very nmeli tlie same all over the world,) read a 
newspaper now without achnittiiiij; it. The sorrow for the 
lieavy personal bereavement, as the death of the Queen's 
husband seems to be, which the British nation feels, is modi- 
lied and shared by the regret at the possibility of another 
fraternal war between them and ns. Within a month there 
has been spoken in the Abbey Church of Westminster, by 
the tongue of a gentle and accomplished christian minister 
— a master of the pure English language, which we cannot, 
if we would, renounce — words on which the eye has just 
lighted, and which are reproduced here, to illustrate what 
we are trying to say. It is sorrowing, sorely afflicted, not, 
according to Mr. Sumner, "penitent England" that speaks 
in the voice of one of her gentlest, purest sons : 

"A little month ago, we might have had our passing 
inquietudes, such as at our best state we can never be 
actually without, but in the main, all appeared w^ell with us. 
We looked down, with too little sympathy, perhaps, on 
the nations around us ; we saw^ the cup of pain and tribula- 
tion as it passed from the lips of one to those of another, 
and almost deemed it was never destined for our own. We 
compared, with perhaps, too much pride and complacency, 
our lot with them. So fortunate at home, so fortunate 
abroad, we said : ' Peace and safety are ours ; to-mor- 
row will be as to-day, or its prosperity more abundant !' 
But lo ! in a moment the huge black v»'ings of the tempest 
had stretched across our whole horizon, shrouding it with 
thickest darkness, and Christmas, on the eve of which we 
stood, seemed almost to mock us with its untimely mirth, so 
painfull}' did it contrast with all the sorrow and sadness in 
our hearts. One great soitow has already overtaken us, 
and there is another, j)erhaps, travelling uj) behind, the 
tidings of Avliich may in)\\' l)e on their way to ns — Init in 
God's mercy, may that threatening evil, an unna.tnral and 



30 

IVatenial war, a war l)etweeii the cliildron of the same 
mother, be averted."'* 

But Mr. Seward doc* not believe one word of this. Hos- 
tility to England was the staple of his poor joke to the Duke 
of Xewcastle, at a dinner table. It is the animating spirit 
of these unfortunate despatches, in which, from the Cabinet 
at Washington, he instructed Mr. Adams and Mr. Da3-ton 
how they were to comport themselves towards those hostile 
powers of England and France. The fruits of the experi- 
ment we have in the attitude they now hold. 

From the 9tli of March, Avhen he addressed his circular 
to our Ministers abroad, to the date of his despatch to Lord 
Lyons, surrendering Messrs. Slidell and Mason, "at such 
time and place as his Lordship should indicate," was an in- 
terval of ten months. Excluding that incidental matter, 
Mr. Seward had eight months for his diplomatic eftbrts. 
Let us see what those efforts were, and what fruits they 
liave borne. 

There were two, and but two objects to be attained. 

One Avas, to prevent even the indirect recognition of the 
seceded States. 

The other, to eft'ect a complete prohibition of privateering, 
by obtaining permission for the United States to become 
parties to the agreement of the Congress at Paris. 

Mr. Seward has lamentably failed in both. 

Let us reverse tlie order in Avhich Ave have enumerated 
these objects, and consider the privateering /?V/6(0 first. 



-^ Dean Trench's sermon on the death of Prince Albert, 22d December, 18H1. 
In the life of Sir Charles Napier, occurs a passage of touching interest, now 
■when the hand of brother is raised against brother, showing how his soldier's 
heart revolted from the bloody work. He had a command in Virginia in 1813, 
at the very spot where was Hampton and is Great Betiiel. He writes in his 
diai'y: "I would rather see two Frenchmen shot than one American. It is 
quite shocking to have men who speak our own language brought in wounded; 
one feels as if they Avere Engli:<h peasants and that wc are killing our own 
people." Vol. T, p. -'2i. 



31 

Tliis u-|'cat cluuiiiv ill tlic settled liv'lligereiit policy oftlie 
iiatioM, it will 1)C ix'i'ollected, was first broug-lit to the atten- 
tion of the eountrv by President Pierce, in his Annnal 
Message of 1856. The attempted iiegociation on this and 
kindred subjects of general maritime law, between Mr. 
Marcy and Count Sartiges, when it occurred six years ago, 
was deemed of sufficient importance to be mentioned in a 
President's Message. Its failure was no reason for omitting 
it, and Mr. Pierce explained at length, w^liat had been done 
and attempted. Xot so Mr. Lincoln. Neither in his Mes- 
sage of July, nor in that of December, do we find an ex- 
planatory w^ord — indeed, only a singular, meagre, and not 
very intelligible sentence, from w^hich one Avould hardly 
infer that dtiring the short recess of Congress, if not 
during the extra session, an elaborate attempt had been 
made to ameliorate the whole code of sea law, wdth an otl^er 
to surrender unconditionally a part of the Avar-making 
power recognized in the Constitution, and that it had failed. 
Yet, such these papers shoAV to l)e the fact.* 

Its story may be l)riefly told. 

Let it be rememl)ered, as we have said, that among the 
poW'Crs conferred on Congress by the Constitution, is that 
of " declaring w^ar and issuing letters of mai-que and re- 
prisal." ^Ve are not aware that a question has ever been 
suggested, hoAv far such a power of Congress could be 
perpetually renounced by a treaty, but we arc content to 
admit it might be. But w^e do not doubt that the surrender 
of this great Aveapon of war, is of more than doubtful ex- 



* " Some treaties, designed chiefly for the interests of commerce, and hav- 
ing no grave political importance, have been negociated, and will be submitted 
to the Senate for their consideration. Although we have failed to induce 
some of the commercial powers to adopt a desirable melioration of maritime 
war, we have removed all obstructions from the way of this humane reform, 
except such as are of merely temporary and accidental occurrence." Presi- 
dent Lincoln's Message of Decenibor 0, ISiil. 



}k'(1'k-iu'_v — oiiii-liT lu'vci' to l»e tliouu-lit oi', iiiik'ss aeeo]ii|i;i- 
iiietl by a eoinplt'te abnegation of the captnre of }»rivate 
property on the oeean, and its exemption from blockade 
restrictions — and never was thought of, and never woiihl 
have been suggested by Mr. Lincohi's Government, but for 
the pressure of the Southern privateering. Wlien, in 1856, 
the French Government, asked Mr. Marcy's adhesion to 
the new doctrine, we all remember the language, so unlike 
Mr. Seward's, in which the reply was expressed. It Avas a 
frank, earnest decision. 

"The policy of the law," said Mr. Marcy, "which allows 
a resort to privateers, has been questioned, for reasons which 
do not command the assent of this government. Without 
entering into a full discussion on this point, the undersigned 
will confront the ordinary and chief objection to that policy, 
by authority which ^^^l\ be regarded Avith profound respect, 
particularly in France, for it is Yalin who says, 'However 
lawful and time-honored this mode qf warfare may be, it is, 
nevertheless, disapproved of by some pretended philoso- 
phers. According to their notions, such is not the way in 
Avhich the state and sovereign are to be served ; whilst the 
profits which individuals may dci'ive from the pursuits are 
illicit, or at least disgraceful. But this is the language of 
bad citizens, who, under the stately mask of a spurious wis- 
dom and of a craftily sensitive conscience, seek to mislead 
the judgment by a concealment of the surer motive which 
gives birth to their indifference for the welfare and advan- 
tage of the state. Such are as worth}' of blame as are those 
entitled to praise who generously expose their property and 
their lives to the dangers of privateering." ' 

This was the accepted doctrine of the ITnited States, and 
so Mr. Seward thought when he took office ; for, in the 
instructions to Mr. Adams, dated on April 10th, he tells 
him the only open questions with Great Britain relate to 
Puget Sound and the Hudson Bay Company, Avhich are to 
be discussed at Washington ; and that all he will have to 



38 

do will be to wateli the maeliiuations of the ''Rebel"" emis- 
saries, and to see that Lord Russell does not become a vic- 
tim to their blandishments. On the 13th Fort Sumter fell. 
On the 19th the Star of the West was captured, to become, 
as was supposed, the nucleus 'of a privateer navy that might 
sweep the seas ; and on the 24th Mr. Seward issued his 
circular to all the leading courts of Europe, agreeing to 
abolish privateering absolutely, from motives of " benevo- 
lence and faith in human progress !" l^ay, so anxious was 
he that he actually sent the draught of a convention to that 
effect. The despatch thus closes, and we beg the reader to 
note the very faint manner in which the wish for the Marcy 
amendment is expressed, and the singular reason given for 
not pressing it, — that Europe is on the verge of general 
wars, or, as Mr. Seward expresses it, "quite general wars." 
The language is this : 

"For your own information, it will be sufficient to say 
that the President adheres to the opinion expressed by my 
predecessor, Mr. Marcy, that it would be eminently desirable 
for the good of all nations that the property and eifects of 
private individuals, not contraband, should be exempt from 
seizure and confiscation by national vessels in maritime 
war. If the time and circumstances were propitious to a 
prosecution of the negociation, with that object in view he 
would direct that it should be assiduously pursued. But 
the right season seems to have passed, at least for the pre- 
sent. Europe seems once more on the verge of quite gene- 
ral wars. On the other hand, a portion of the American 
people have raised the standard of insurrection, and pro- 
claimed a provisional government, and, through their or- 
gans, have taken the bad resolution to invite privateers to 
prey upon the peaceful commerce of the United States, 
Prudence and humanity combine in persuading the Presi- 
dent, under the circumstances, that it is wise to secure the 
lesser good oftered by the Paris Congress, without waiting 
indetinitelv, in hope to obtain the greater one, offered 
5 



u 

to the maritime nations, by tlie President of the CTnited 
States." 

The instruction thus given in a panic, not, we admit, 
unreasonable, to acceptthe Paris proposition, pure and simple, 
and renounce our cherished maritime means of war, was so 
received by Mr. Adams, who, in the intervals allowed him 
from the anxious custody of intercepted despatch bags, ap- 
plied himself to carrying it into effect, l^ot so Mr. Dayton ; 
and here, studying these papers ^with an anxious desire to 
weigh evidence and to ascertain truth, we admit a grievous 
peqolexity on discovering that Mr. Dayton, though appa- 
rently without other instructions than Mr. Adams, pursued 
a widely different course, insisting on the Marcy amendment 
to the last, and never giving it up till he was ordered to do 
so from "Washington ; and thus we have the strange exhibi- 
tion of an utter want of accord in our two ministers, though 
each is accredited to a leading party to the Congress of 
Paris, and who were onh- separated by a day's journey and 
a few seconds of telegraphing. One need not wonder at the 
failure of diplomacy thus directed or thus conducted. 

Of it, there is but one of two solutions ; either that there 
were instructions given to Mr. Dayton different from Mr. 
Adams', which are not published, having for their aim the 
fruition of some ambi-dextrous polic}^ of separating France 
from EngUmd; or, what is far more probable, that Mr. Day- 
ton, an able and earnest man, well educated in the political 
historj' of his country, felt and acted under an honest con- 
viction that the Marcy amendment ought not to be given 
up without effort; and that, looking to the rugged horizon 
and dark clouds around him, the chances, not of general 
wars of i^urope, but the possible conflict between us and it, 
he could not bear to give up our natural, constitutional 
weapon of offence and defence, without a struggle for some 
compensation. While this theory does not make the tech- 
nical diplomacy better, or at all relieve the administration 
from its panic-stricken and ineffectual concession, it very 
much elevates Mr. Dayton as a patriot and statesman. Let 



35 

us briefly trace tliis })art of the record, begging it to be un- 
derstood our criticisms are only on what we have before us, 
not on what we may imagine to be withheld. 

Late in May, Mr, Dayton broached the subject to the 
French government, and urged the Marcy amendment, on 
account, he says, of his sense of "the great importance of 
securing the principle, before the United States should give 
up the right of privateering, and the repeated willingness 
of the continental governments to agree to it." A few 
weeks later he is startled by reading in the New York news- 
papers that the government had permitted it to be known 
that the amendment would not be insisted on. "I fear," 
says he, writing to Mr. Seward, "this will prevent all chance 
of better terms." On the 31st of May Mr. Dayton formally 
proposed the amendment to M. Thouvenal. The answer 
to this is not given, though we infer it to have been, that 
the proposition should have been addressed, not to Franco 
alone, but to all the powers, and on the same day Mr. Day- 
ton more clearly stated his scruples to the department at 
home. 

" Our condition, as respects privateering and the bel- 
ligerent rights conceded to the South, lias been so changed 
by the action of Great Britain, France, and Spain, subse- 
quent to the first declaration of Lord John Eussell, (stating 
that such belligerent rights w^ould be conceded) that I know 
not what may be the views of the Government of the United 
States at this time, as respects an accession to the treaty of 
1856, pure and simple. But, as I have learned that nothing 
substantially has been done in that direction at other points, 
and I do not see that the interests of the country will be 
jeoparded by a little delay, I shall await further instructions 
upon this subject. My first despatch, referring to this 
matter, was dated 22d of May last, and I doubt not I shall 
now receive an answer at an early day. If the Government 
of the United States shall, in view of the circumstances, 
direct me to make the proposition to the French Govern- 



ment to accede, to the Paris treaty, pure and simple, I will, 
acting under such express direction, lose no time in "making 
the proposition." 

At a later date (Juh' 5th) he was still more explicit, and 
stated his views of the whole affair in words not to be mis- 
understood. 

"It is due to frankness to say, that if a convention is to 
be negociated for an accession by the 'United States to the 
Treaty of Paris, without amendment to the first clause, I 
would prefer it should be done at Washington, rather than 
Paris. Still, I hold myself subject to the orders of the 
Government, in this, as in other matters. I have already 
said I should await further instructions from your depart- 
ment on this subject." 

There were then on their way to him, two despatches 
from Mr. Seward of great import, and which were designed 
to give him the "express direction" he needed. On the 
15th of June, Mr. Mercier and Lord Lyons had called on 
the Secretary with a joint communication as to a modified 
recognition of the Confederates as belligerents, which, as is 
well known, Mr. Seward refused to listen to ; and, on the 
17th, he Avrote to Mr. Dayton, claiming vast credit for hav- 
ing long before agreed to become a party to the Paris 
compact. "While," said he, "willing and desirous to have 
that further principle (the Marcy amendment) incorporated 
in the law of nations, we, nevertheless, instructed you and 
all our representatives to waive it, if necessary^ and to stipu- 
late, subject to the concurrence of the Senate, our adhesion 
to the declaration of Paris, as a whole and unmodified. 
We have ever since been waiting for the responses of foreign 
powers to this high and liberal demonstration on our part." 
It is perfectly clear that the "if necessarj^" of the despatch 
was an afterthought; for no such word is to be found in the 
instructions, and all the while Mr. Adams had never dreamed 
he was to make such an experiment, and never did make it. 

On the 6th of July, there is a despatch to Mr. Dayton. 



ST 

which may be described as ahnost petulant, and from which 
we make a feAV extracts, sniiieiently indicative of this spirit. 
The italics are ours. 

"The instructions dated April 24, required you to tender 
to the French Government, vnihoid delatj, our adhesion to 
the declaration of the Congress of Paris, pure and simple." 

"They waived," he says again in the same despatch, "the 
Marcy amendment, and required you to propose our acces- 
sion to the declaration of the Congress." "The matter 
stood in this plain and intelligible way, until certain decla- 
rations or expressions of the French Government induced 
you to believe that they would recognize and treat the 
insurgents as a distinct national power for belligerent 
purposes. It was not altogether unreasonable that you, 
being at Paris, should suppose that this Government would 
think itself obliged to acquiesce in such a course by tlie 
Government of France." "The case was peculiar, and in 
the aspect in which it presented itself to you, portentious. 
We were content that you might risk the experiment, so, 
however, that you should not bring any responsibility for 
delay upon this Government. But you now see you have 
encountered the very difficulty which was at first foreseen by 
us. It is no time for propagandism, but for • energetic acting 
to arrest the worst of all national calamities. We, therefore, 
expect you now to renew the proposition in the form originally 
presented/^ 

Early in August, Mr. Dayton received these peremptory 
orders. There was no alternative but to obey. He thus 
announced to the Secretary his reluctant acquiescence : 

"By my note to Mr. Adams, written in London, you will 
find your instructions were anticipated by my action ; that 
immediately upon learning /rom a reliable source, what were 
the views of the Government in regard to an accession to 
the Treaty of Paris, expressed with full knowledge of facts 
occurring since its original instructions to me, I at once 
took measures to comply with them, without attempting to 



38 

balance the suggestions of my own mind against its known 
wishes. But I confess, in a matter of such grave importance, 
as an accession by the United States to that treaty, I did 
want those wishes expressed with full knowledge of the 
facts." {Mr. Dayton to Mr. Seward, 2d August, 1861.) 

The proposition "pure and simple," thus dictated, was 
then made, but failed in consequence, as it seems, of the 
English and French Governments desiring to incorporate 
in the convention, a stipulation that it was to have no bear- 
ing directly or indirectly on the question of our Southern 
and domestic difficulty, Mr. Dayton, glad no doubt to be 
relieved from the embarrassment in which he found him- 
self, rejected this promptly, without waiting for instructions, 
and Mr, Adams, between whom ami Earl Russell, had 
arisen rather a delicate question of memory as to facts, 
followed the examjDle, and thus l)roke down, like everything 
else, this diplomatic enterprise ; and l>y no merit of his, Mr. 
Seward's administration still holds in its hand the only 
weapon which a thorough blockade of our large sea-ports 
would leave us in the too probable event of a war with the 
great maritime powers of Europe. 

Whether the English and French Govennnents were 
justified in wishing to interpolate this limitation on the new 
code, is a question rather for them than for us. Their 
reasons were thus, precisely, and one would think iuofl^en- 
sively given by M. Thouvenal to Mr. Dayton. 

" He said that both France and Great Britain had alread}^ 
announced that they would take no part in our domestic 
controversy, and they thought that a frank and open decla- 
ration in advance of the execution of this convention might 
save difficulty and misconception hereafter. He further 
said, in the way of specification, that the provisions of the 
Treaty standing alone, might bind England and France to 
pursue and punish the privateers of the South as pirates ; 
that they were unwilling to do this, and had already so 
declared. He said that wp eonld deal with these people as 



39 

we chose, and they could only express their regret on the 
score of humanity, if we should deal with them as pirates, 
but they could not participate in such a course. He said 
further, that although both England and France w^ere 
anxious to have the adhesion of the United States to the 
declaration of Paris, that they would rather dispense with 
it altogether, than be drawTi into our domestic controversy. 
He insisted, somewhat pointedly, that I could take no just 
exception to this outside declaration, simultaneous with the 
execution of the Convention, unless we intended they 
should be made parties to our controversy ; and that the 
very fact of my hesitation w^as an additional reason why 
they should insist upon making such contemporaneous 
declaration." 

And we confess the precaution was not unreasonable, for 
turning to Mr. Seward's elaborate despatch of the 6th July, 
we find that in tendering this accession to the agreement to 
abolish privateering as the act of the Federal Government, 
it w^as meant to make it "• obligatory equally upon disloyal 
as loyal citizens;" or, in other words, to frame it so as 
to enable us to call upon France and England to aid in 
pursuing and punishing the privateers of the South as 
pirates, wdiich, for the sake of humanity, the}' were deter- 
mined not to do. In all this there is certainly no laurel 
leaf for the Secretary's brow. 

We have not allow^ed ourselves time to follow closely the 
line of Mr. Sew'ard's policy on the graver question of the 
recognition or quasi-recognition of the Confederates as 
belligerents. It is to our mind a sad record. We can 
afford room only for a few specimens of what has been said 
and written. They fully sustain the opinion we have 
formed, and show how^ natural it is that, at the end of ten 
months of restless activity abroad and laborious rhetoric at 
home, it is more a question than ever, what the leading 
powders of Europe mean to do in this crisis of our destiny ; 
the chances being rather against us. 



.40 

Mr. Seward began his course of iustruction under mani^ 
fest prejudice and no little self-deception. He had not a 
•doubt the instruction would be over in a month or two. 
He imagined that the public mind of Europe had been 
poisoned by the machinations of the past, and it was in the 
power of his magic pen to conjure down the evil spirit. 
Now the truth is, there was not the slightest colour 
for all this ; for, though in his first despatch to Mr. 
Adams, speaking of the late Administration, he says, 
that "disaffection lurked, if it did not avow itself, in every 
department and every bureau, in every regiment and in 
every ship of war, in the Post Office and in the Custom 
House, and in every Legation and consulate, from London to 
Calcutta," these very papers show that, in a majority of 
Mr. Buchanan's ministers abroad, his successor found 
fidelity, ability, zeal, and what in the new phrase of the day 
is .known as exuberant "loyalty."'-' This was especially the 
case, and so admitted to be, at Lonch^u, St. Petersburg, 
Holland, Prussia, Austria, Switzerland, and Rome. — 
Mr. Seward retracts the aspersion in particular cases, but 
allows the general libel to stand and to be published to the 
world. This may be the solution of the morbid temper in 
which, in times requiring great coolness and magnaniniity, 
he began his administrative career. The only possible ex- 
ceptions to what we have said are the cases of Mr. Faulkner 
at Paris, and Mr. Preston in Spain ; and yet to these gen- 
tlemen, whatever may have been their conduct or their suf- 
ferings since, these documents sh-ow great injustice has been 
done. As far back as the 19th of March, Mr. Faulkner 
wrote to the department as intelligent and "loyal" a de- 
spatch as its archives can boast of, in which he narrated his 
earnest protest "against the recognition of the seceded 



* As to the disaffection in the depaianents oti :\ir. Lincoin's accession, it is 
a question to he discussed by Mr. Seward with the present Secretary of War, 
Mr. Stanton, once Mr. Buchanan's Attorney-General: Mr. Holt, his War 
Minister ; and Major-General Dix, his Secretary of the Treasury. 



41 

States as irreconcilable with any principle of international 
law or courtesy, or consideration of public benefit;" but he 
added, and this, we presume, was his offence: "You have 
not, in your despatch, informed me what line of policy it is 
the purpose of the Federal government to adopt towards 
the seceding States, a fact most material in determining 
my own action, as well as the views to be addressed to a 
foreign power on the points presented by your instructions. 
If I correctly construe the intentions of the government, it 
looks to a pacific solution of the difficulties which now dis- 
turb its relations with the seceding States. In other words, 
it does not propose to resort to the strong arm of military 
power to coerce those States into submission to the Federal 
authority. If this be a correct view of its proposed action, 
and all who understand the genius of our institutions and 
the character of our people, must hope that it shall be such, 
the only difficulty will be in making European governments 
appreciate the spirit of such wise and conciliatory policy, 
and comprehend the just application of the principles of 
international jurisprudence to a state of facts so novel and 
peculiar," with the Emperor's remark, that "He did not 
misapprehend the spirit of conciliation which now actuates 
the conduct of the Federal authorities. lie knows that 
appeals lo the public judgment perform that function in our 
republic which is elsewhere only accomplished by brute 
force. And if armies have not been marshalled, as they 
would have been ere this in Europe, to give effect to the 
Federal authority, he is aware that it is not because the 
general government disclaims authority over the seceding 
States, or is destitute of the means and resources of war, 
but from an enlightened conviction on its part that time 
and reflection will be more efficacious than arms in re-es- 
tablishing the Federal authority, and restoring that senti- 
ment of loyalty to the Union w^hich was once the pride of 
every American heart." 

Mr. Preston wrote from Madrid in April : '-An interview 
(J 



42 

has taken place between the Minister of Foreign Affairs 
and myself in reference to the subject embraced in 3'our 
circular. The minister expressed pain at the posture of 
affairs in the United States, but said that her Majesty's 
government was informed that extensive military and naval 
preparations were making in the North to enforce the Fede- 
ral supremacy in the South, and that the consequences were 
to be dreaded. I replied that I felt assured his information 
was erroneous." 

Now, let us see, recorded in this volume and never re- 
tracted, what Mr. Seward himself was saying, twenty days 
after Mr. Faulkner, and twelve days before Mr. Preston 
uttered their "anti-coercion" heresies. 

"The President," he writes to England on April 10, 1861, 
" neither looks for nor apprehends an}' actual and perma- 
nent dismemberment of the American Union, especially by 
a line of latitude. He is not disposed to reject a cardinal 
dogma of the South, namely, that the Federal Government 
caunot reduce the seceding States to obedience by con- 
quest, even although he were disposed to question that 
proposition. But, in fact, the President willingly accepts 
it as true. Only an imperial or despotic Government could 
subjugate thoroughly disaffected and insurrectionary members of 
the State. This federal republican system of ours is, of all 
forms of government, the very one which is most unfitted 
for such a labor. Happily, however, this is only an imagi- 
nary defect. The system has within itself adequate, peaceful, 
conservative and recuperative forced. Firmness on the part 
of the Government, in preserving and maintaining the public 
institutions and property, and in executing the laws where 
authority can be exercised without loaging war^ combined 
with such measures of justice, moderation and forbearance 
as will disarm reasoning opposition, will be sufficient to 
secure the public safety until returning reflection, concur- 
ring with the fearful experience of social evils, the inevitable 
fruits of faction, shall bring the recusant members cheer- 



43 

fully back into the fliraily, which, after all, must prove their 
best and happiest, as it undeniably is their natural home. 
The Constitution of the United States provides for that 
return, by autliorizing Congress, on application to be made 
by a certain majority of the States, to assemble a National 
Conventioyi, in which the organic law can, if it be needful, 
be revised so as to remove all obstacles to a re-union, so 
suitable to the habits of the people, and so eminently con- 
ducive to the common safety and welfare. Keeping that 
remedy steadily in view, the President, on the one hand, 
will not suffer the Federal authority to fall into abeyance, 
nor will he, on the other, aggravate existing evils by attempts 
at coercion which must assume the form of direet war against any 
of the revolutionary States:' 

The guns of Fort Moultrie, on the 13th of April, we are 
bound in candour to presume, awakened the administration 
from this dream of peace, frustrated disavowals of coercion and 
the hope of a National Convention, and Mr. Seward at once 
transferred his animosities and suspicions, and threats, from 
Mr. Buchanan's expiring embassies to foreign governments, 
and especially, and, as the result shows, most unfortunately, 
to that power whose friendliness it was most important to 
conciliate, and which Mr. Seward, as appears by a despatch 
to his most confidential agent, Mr. Sanford, at Brussels, 
admitted, "would take the lead in determining European 
relations to the United States." 

Let us briefly retrace the recent past, merely remarking at 
the outset, that it seems incredible (and this we say in all 
kindness) that the same pen which traced the letter to Lord 
Lyons, surrendering Mr. Mason andMr. Slidell, in December, 
could have written the blustering despatches of April, and 
May, and June. Being recently and deliberately published, 
however, we are bound to believe that the spirit of defiance. 
as Mr. Cassius Clay says "to old John Bull," is still smoul- 
dering in the Secretary's heart, the only incongruity being, 
what we are loth to believe on mere newspaper report, that 



44 

Biitish troops are at this moment passing, by consent, 
over ]^ew England railroads, to reinforce the garrisons of 
Canada. 

There is a character in one of Sheridan's comedies, who, 
when inditing a challenge to a courteous adversary*, pro- 
poses to begin with an imprecation. Mr, Seward sets out 
in his diplomatic correspondence witli Great Britain with 
something kindred to one. He thunders terribly in the index. 
"When the instructions to Mr. Adams were prepared, nothing 
bad reached this country but expressions of kindness and 
sympathy on the part of Great Britain, and at their very date 
(April 9th) Mr. Dallas had written that Lord John Russell, 
in conversation on the subject of recognizing the Confede- 
rates, assured him, "with great earnestness, that there wa8 
not the slightest disposition to grasp at any advantage which 
might be supposed to arise from the unpleasant domestic 
differences in the United States, but, on the contrary, he 
would be highly gratified if those differences were adjusted, 
and the Union restored to its former unbroken position." 
With this, Mr. Dallas, a most amiable man, and one who, 
from long experience, might be supposed capable of accu- 
rately estimating official language, was apparently content, 
or, at all events, he intimates no distrust. On the next 
day, (April 10,) it is, that Mr. Seward fulminates his elabo- 
rate instructions to Mr. Adams, from which some extracts 
have been made. Their minatory spirit, however, is traceable 
in sentences like the following, which bristle at intervals 
throughout: 

''If you," says he, " unhappily find Her Majesty's Govern- 
ment tolerating the application of the so-called seceding 
States, or wavering about it, you will not leave them to 
suppose for a moment that they can grant that application, 
and remain the friends of the United States. You may 
even assure them promptly in that case, that if they deter- 
mine to recognize, they may at the same time prepare to 
enter into alliance wnth the enemies of this Republic. You 



whmo will rcjiivscnl voiir t-ounti-v at London, unci you will 
represent the whole of it there. When you are asked to 
divide that duty with others, diplomatic relations between 
the Government of Great Britain and this Government will 
be suspended, and will remain so, until it shall be seen 
which of the two is most strongly entrenched in the confi- 
dence of their respective nations and of mankind." 

And then again comes a sentence, not very intelligible, 
especially in the part we venture to italicise: 

"It might be enough to say on that subject, that as the 
United States and Great Britain are equals in dignity, and 
not unequal in astuteness in the science and practice of 'political 
economy^ the former have good right to regard only their 
own convenience and consult their own judgment in framing 
their revenue laws."* 

The concluding, or rather penultimate sentence, is this : 

"The British empire itself is an aggregation of divers 
communities, which cover a large portion of the earth, and 
embrace one-fifth of the entire population. Some, at least, 
of these communities, are held to their places in that system, 
by bonds as fragile as the obligations of our own Federal 
Union. The strain will sometime come, which is to try the 
strength of these bonds, though it will be of a different kind 
from that which is trying the cords of our confederation. 
Would it be wise for Her Majesty's Government, on this 
occasion, to set a dangerous precedent, or provoke retalia- 
tion ? If Scotland and Ireland are at last reduced to quiet 
contentment, has Great Britain no dependency, island or 
province left exposed along the whole circle of her empire. 



* The Secretary is fond of the un-English word " astuteness." He tells Mr. 
Sanford, who seems to be a roving diplomatist, flying from his perch at 
Brussels, to London, to Paris, to Turin, to Genoa, and to Caprera : "The 
President willingly expects to rely on your astuteness in discovering points of 
attack, and your practical skill and experience in protecting the interests of 
tlie United States." 



from Gibraltar tlirougli the AVest Indies and Canada, till it 
beg-ins ao-ain on tlie Soiitliern extremity of Africa?* 

With Mr. Dallas' report of Lord John Russell's declara- 
tion of sympathy, Mr. Seward was far from being satisfied. 
Just before answering it, he had received a foolish letter 
from Governor Hicks, of Maryland, which is part of the 
history of the times, suggesting Lord Lyons as a mediator 
between ITorth and South, and had replied tartly, "that no 
domestic contention whatever, which mi2:ht arise amono- 
the parties of this Republic, ought, in any case, to be referred 
to any foreign arbitrament, least of all, to the arbitrament 
of an European Monarchy." A bold annunciation which, 
or at least that part of it, where he specially and scornfully 
refuses monarchial mediation, he seemed to have forgotten, 
when, a month later, he assured the French Emperor, that 
if Foreign intercession was practicable, " so cordial is our 
regard, and such our confidence in his wisdom and justice. 



* Mr. Lovejoy, in a speech in the House of Representatives, on January 14, 
18G2, elaborating Mr. SewanVs ideas said : 

"I hate the British Government, I here now publicly avow and record that 
hate, and declare that it shall be unextinguishable. I mean to cherish it 
while I live, and to bequeath it to my children when I die, and if I am alive 
when war with England comes, and if I can carry a musket in that war, I will 
carry it. I have three sons, and I mean to chai-ge them, and do now charge 
them, that if they shall have at that time reached the years of manhood and 
strength they shall enter into that war. I believe there was no need for that 
surrender, and I believe that the nation would rather have gone to war with 
Great Britain than have suffered the disgrace of being insulted and being thus 
unavenged. I have not reached the sublimation of Christianity — that exalta- 
tion of Christianity which allows me to be insulted, abused and dishonored. 
I can bear all that as a Christian, but to say that I do it cheerfully, is more 
than I can bring myself to. I trust in God that the time is not far distant when 
we shall have suppressed this rebellion, and be prepared to avenge and wipe 
out the insult that we have received. We will then stir up Ireland, we will 
appeal to the Chartists of England, we will go to the old French hahitans of 
Canada, we will join hands with France and Russia to take away the Eastern 
possessions of that proud empire, and will take away the crown from that 
Government before we cease." — Netv Yerk Tribune. 



47 

that liis mediatiou woiild be accepted."* Be that as it 
may, co-iiicideiitly with the Maryland impertinence, came Mr. 
Dallas' report of the interview at Downing Street, and at 
once the Secretary sends hot words across the water : 

"Her Britannic Majesty's Government is at liberty to 
choose whether it will retain the friendship of this Govern- 
ment by refnsing all aid and comfort to its enemies, now in 
flagrant rebellion against it, as we think the treaties exist- 
ing between the two countries require, or whether the 
Government of Her Majesty will take the precarious benefits 
of a different course." 

We hope not to be misunderstood. There can be no 
objection in diplomatic or any other kind of discussion, to 
spirited, and it may be defiant words, but one ought to be 
sure that the occasion warrants them — that they are never 
used precipitately — and that once used, they are not in terror 
withdrawn. The true rule is as old as Solomon, and Shaks- 
peare for the one, tells us : 

" He Weave 
Of entrance to a quarrel ; but, being in,. 
Bear it, that the opposer may beware of thee ;" 

and the other, as if with reference to the Mr. Seward of 
April, and the Mr. Seward of December, says : — " Go not 
torth hastily to strife, lest thou know not what to do in 
the end thereof, when thy neighbor hath put thee to shame." 
The gentlest judgment we can pass on the Secretary is, that 
in the prime of his ofiicial existence, he was in haste to 
strife, little thinking of the end thereof. 

But the complication soon thickened. In the first fort- 
night of May, there arrived in London Mr. Seward's letter 
of the 27th April, to which we have just referred, the 
Southern commissioners or emissaries, and last of all, Mr. 
Adams. Before Mr. Adams came, Mr. Dallas had another 
interview with tlie Foreio'u Secretar\', wlio told liim : 



Despatch Lo Mr. Dayton, May 30, 1861. 



4.S 

''That the three representatives of the Southern confede- 
racy were here ; that he had not seen them, but was not 
unwilling to do so, imofficially ; that there existed an under- 
standing between this Government and that of France, 
which would lead both to take the same course as to recog- 
nition, whatever that course might be ; and he then referred 
to the rumor of a meditated blockade of Southern ports, and 
their discontinuance as ports of entry — topics on which I 
had heard nothing, and could therefere say nothing." 

On the 6th of May there was a discussion in the House 
of Commons, to which Mr. Adams thus refers : 

" The answer given by Lord John Russell, in the pro- 
ceedings of the 6th of May, will of course have attracted 
your attention, long before these lines meet your eye. I 
need not say that it excited general surprise, especially 
among those most friendly to the Government of the United 
States. There seems to be not a little precipitation in at 
once raising the disaffected States up to the level of a bel- 
ligerent power, before it had developed a single one of the 
real elements which constitute military efficiency outside of 
its geographical limits. The case of the Greeks was by no 
means a parallel case ; for the declaration had not been 
made until such time had intervened as was necessary to 
prove, by the very words quoted by Lord John Russell from 
the instructions of the British Government, that the power 
was sufficient ' to cover the sea with its cruisers.' Wliereas, 
in the present instance, there was no evidence to show, as 
yet, the existence of a single privateer afloat."* 



* There is, in this despatch, a mysteriovis intimation, beyond our compre- 
hension. After describing his presentation to the Queen, Mr. Adams says : 
" Thus an end is put to all the speculations which have been set afloat, touch- 
ing the prt.b b!e posiiion of the Minister of the United States at this Court." 
What is meant by this? Mr. Adams, when he wrote this letter, could not 
have studied carefully the history of the recognition of Greece by the 
European Powers. It is on all fours with what is doing now. Mr. Seward is 
our Reis Effendi, who, to use the language of a writer of that day, (1925,) 



49 

When Mr. Adams opens tliis strange volume lie will be 
amazed to find that twenty days before he so positively said 
that there was not a Southern privateer afloat, his Secretaiy 
of State had, in a formal despatch to Mr. Schurz at Madrid, 
written : 

" The revolutionists have opposed to us an army of inva- 
sion, directed against this capital, and a force of privateers 
excited to prey upon commerce, and ultimately, no doubt, 
on the commerce of the world." 

Mr. Dallas's letter of the 2d of May, with the intelligence 
that Lord John Russell might possibly receive unotRcially 
the Confederate Commissioners as individuals, just as he 
would Poles, or ISTeapolitans, or Hungarians who happened 
to be in London, produced another vehement despatch, 
which, Mr. Adams is told, is not to be read to the British 
Secretary; nor are any of its positions to be "prematurely, 
unnecessarily, or indiscreetly" made known. "Its spirit is 
to be your guide." Wliat that spirit is the reader may 
judge from the following extracts : 

"As to the recognition of the so-called Southern Con- 
federacy, it is not to be made a subject of technical defini- 
tion. It is, of course, direct recognition to publish an ac- 
knowledgment of the sovereignty and independence of a 
new power. It is direct recognition to receive its ambassa^ 
dors, ministers, agents, or commissioners ofiicially. A con- 
cession of belligerent rights is liable to be construed as a 
recognition of them. No one of these proceedings will pass 
unquestioned by the United States in this case. 

"Happily, however, her Britannic Majesty's government 
can avoid all these difficulties. It invited us, in 1856, to 
accede to the declaration of the Congress of Paris, of which 



" wrote like a man who holds the endeavors of neutral nations in contempt, 
under the notion that the Greek question would shortly be settled by the 
decided triumph of the Turkish arms." 

7 



50 

l3ody Great Britain was herself a member, abolishing priva- 
teering everywhere, in all cases and forever. You already 
have our authority to propose to her our accession to that 
declaration. If she refuse it, it can only be because she is 
willing to become the patron of privateering when aimed at 
our devastation." 

But the point of the threat, — ending in a specitic direc- 
tion, which to this hour, we believe, has never been carried 
into eiiect — is this : 

"The President regrets that Mr. Dallas did not protest 
against the proposed unoihcial intercourse between the Bri- 
tish government and the missionaries of the insurgents. It 
is due, however, to Mr. Dallas to say that our instructions 
had been onh- to you and not to him, and that his loyalty 
and fidelity, so rare in these times, are appreciated. Inter- 
course of any kind with the so-called commissioners is liable 
to be construed as a recognition of the authority which ap- 
pointed them. Such intercourse woidd be none the less 
hurtful to us, for being called unofficial, and it might be 
even more injurious, because we should have no means of 
knowing what points might be resolved by it. Moreover, 
uuofHcial intercourse is useless and meaningless if it is not 
expected to ripen into official intercourse and direct recog- 
nition. It is left doubtful here whether the proposed unof- 
ficial intercourse has yet actually begun. Your own ante- 
cedent instructions are deemed explicit enough, and it is 
hoped that you have not misunderstood them. You will, in 
any event, desist from all intercourse lohatever, unofficial as well 
as official, with the British governmeyit, so long as it shall continue 
intercourse of either kind with the domestic enemies of this country. 
When intercourse shall have been arrested for this cause, 
you will communicate with this department and receive 
further directions." 

This letter appears not to have reached Mr. Adams till 
the 14th of June ; and it would seem that in the interval, 
with the exception of the Queen's proclamation, and some 



51 

other minor interlocutory matters, nothing had occurred to 
widen the apprehended breach ; and the fruit of several 
interviews at the Foreign OiRce was, that Mr. Adams, on 
the 7th of June, reported, with confidence, a considerable 
amelioration of sentiment towards the United States. Of 
one of the conferences he says, "that both in manner and 
matter it was conducted in the most friendly spirit." So, 
we very much incline to think, it would have continued but 
for the irrepressible activity, the unceasing despatch writing 
from this side of the Atlantic. There seemed an incapacity 
for repose. 

Mr. Seward's orders to remonstrate against Lord John 
Russell's social relations were peremptory; and Mr. Adams, 
with evident reluctance, obeyed them. He thus describes 
the performance of this part of his duty, which he well calls 
the most delicate portion of his task : 

"I next approached the most delicate portion of my task. 
I descanted upon the irritation produced in America by the 
Queen's proclamation, upon the construction almost uni- 
versally given to it, as designed to aid the insurgents, by 
raising them to the rank of a belligerent state, and upon 
the very decided tone taken by the President in my de- 
spatches in case any such design was really entertained. I 
added that, from my own observation of what has since 
occurred here, I had not been able to convince myself of 
the existence of such a design. But it was not to be dis- 
guised that the fact of the continued stay of the pseudo- 
commissioners in this city, and, still more, the knowledge 
that they had been admitted to more or less interviews with 
his Lordship, was calculated to excite uneasiness. Indeed, 
it had already given great dissatisfaction to my government. 
I added, as moderately as I could, that, in all frankness, 
any further protraction of this relation could scarcely fail to 
be viewed by us as hostile in spirit, and to require some 
corresponding action accordingly. His Lordship then re- 
viewed the course of Great Britain. He explained the mode 



52 

in vvliicb they \v.\\ cousulted with Fraiice, prior to any action 
at all, as to the reception of the deputation from the so- 
called Confederate States. It had been the custom, both in 
France and here, to receive such persons unofficially for a 
long time back. Poles, Hungarians, Italians, &c. kc, had 
been allowed interviews, to hear what they had to say. But 
this did not imply recognition in this case any more than 
in ours. lie added, that he had seen the gentlemen once, 
some time ago, and once more, some time since ; he had 
no expectation of seeing them any more." 

Here, in the printed volume, follows a line of those mys- 
terious asterisks, which indicate the suppression of some- 
thing too dangerous or offensive for the outside world to 
know. We are left to conjecture whether Lord John 
reminded Mr. Adams of those days of exorbitant sympathy 
hereabouts, when Repeal meetings were attended by emi- 
nent Statesmen, when Kossuth was publicly received by 
the Senate and a Secretary of State; or even alluded to 
those later days, nearer our times, when fugitives from 
English and European justice have been elevated over the 
heads of native born citizens, to high military positions.* 
All this is left for speculation. The interview, such as it 
was, does not seem — and this without any fault of Mr. 
Adams — to have done any particular good or promoted 
kind feeling. Still Mr. Adams wrote cheerfully, as late as 
the 21st and 28th of June. 

"I am now, said he, earnestly assured on all sides, that 
the sympathy with the Government of the United States is 
general ; that the indignation felt in America, is not founded 
in reason ; that the British desire only to be perfectly neutral, 



* Without meaning to put Garibaldi in eitlier of these categories, it may not 
be inappropriate to say that, on the 27th July last, in the fresh panic for Bull 
Run, as we believe the archives of the State Department will show, Mr. Seward 
offered to that chieftain a command of the highest rank in our army. The 
ambulatory Mr. Sanford visited Caprera for this purpose early in September, 
in a Genopsc fiteamer specially chartered for the occasion. 



58 

giving no aid and comfort to the insurgents. 1 believe that 
this sentiment is now growing to be universal. It inspires 
her Majesty's ministers, and is not without its effect on the 
opposition. Neither party would be so bold as to declare 
its sympathy with a cause based upon the extension of 
slavery; for that would at once draw upon itself the indig- 
nation of the great body of the people. But the develop- 
ment of a positive spirit in the opposite direction, will 
depend far more upon the degree in which the arm of the 
Government enforces obedience, than upon any absolute 
affinity in sentiments. Our brethren in this country are, 
after all, very much disposed to fall in with the opinion of 
Voltaire, that, " Dieu est loujoars sur le cote des gros canons." 
General Scott and an effective blockading squadron will be 
the true agents to keep the peace abroad as well as to 
conquer one at home. In the meanwhile, the self-styled 
commissioners of the insurgents have transferred their 
labors to Paris, where, I am told, they give out what they 
would not venture publicly to say here, that this Govern- 
ment will recognize them as a State. The prediction may 
be verified it is true ; but it is not now likely to happen, 
under any other condition than the preceding assent of the 
United States."* 

"On the whole, I think I can say, that the relations of 
the two countries are gradually returning to a more friendly 
condition. My own reception has been all that I could 
desire., I attach value to this, however, only as it indicates 
the establishment of a policy that will keep us at peace 
during the continuation of the present convulsion." 

All this, the Secretary of State seemed utterly unable to 



* Besides bad English, there are specimens of very questionable French in 
these papers. Mr. Adams does not quote Voltaire correctly ; for surely no 
Frenchman ever said ''■ sur le, cole f and Mr. Sanford leaves us in perplexity, 
when speaking of the Belgian authorities, he says, '•' They would in no case 
make a treaty, which should bind them to the perpetual abolition of passports, 
vis-a-vis to my nation." — Sanford in Seirard, July 3. 1861. 



54 

estimate properly ; for in a despatch of July 1, he thus 
sullenly refers to it : 

" I conclude with the remark that the British Government 
can never expect to induce the United States to acquiesce 
in her assumed position of this Government as divided in 
any degree, into two powers, for war more than for peace. 
At the same time, if her Majesty's Government shall con- 
tinue to practice absolute forbearance from any interference 
in our domestic affairs, we shall not be captious enough to 
inquire what name it gives to that forbearance, or in what 
character it presents itself before the British nation, in 
doing 80." 

And again, as late as September 25th, he writes : 

" I think that Great Britain will soon be able to see, what 
she has hitherto been unwilling to see, that if she, like 
ourselves, seeks peace and prosperity on this continent, she 
can most effectually contribute to their restoration by 
manifesting her wishes for the success of this Government 
in suppressing the insurrection as speedily as possible." 

But, between July and September, the dates of these 
letters, new sources of annoyance had been opened. The 
battle of Manassas— described by Mr. Seward in one letter 
as a "deplorable reverse, equally severe and unexpected," 
and in another as "appalling," had occurred. In the region 
of diplomacy, affairs had become more cloudy. Mr. Seward 
had actively resumed his police duties. He had, in con- 
junction with the late Secretary at War, directed the arrest 
of many individuals, without warrant, or judicial authority, 
or investigation, and to this hour holds them in close cus- 
tody, in a Northern fortress. Among them was a Mr. 
Muir, a naturalized citizen, and therefore amenable to the 
local laws, if properly directed against him, in whose pos- 
session was found a Consular mail bag from Charleston, 
directed to the English Foreign Office. Whether the break- 
ing of its seals was or was not, according to the newspapers, 
the subject of grave deliberation in the Cabinet at Washing- 



55 

ton, or between the Secretnry and Lord Lyons, we have 
no iDeans of knowing ; but one can hardly repress a smile, 
on learning from the documents now given to the world, 
that when it was at last formally delivered b}^ Mr. Adams 
to Earl Russell and opened, its contents were found to be 
entirely innocent, and to consist principally of letters from 
English and Irish governesses and servant girls in South 
Carolina, making their little remittances to their friends 
and relatives in the old country.* It is true, however, that 
this arrest did lead to the avowal of the fact, that before 
September, the English and French Governments had di- 
rected their consuls to approach the "so-called Confederate 
States," and propose to them adhesion to the Treaty of 
Paris, as to neutral rights, coupled however, with the ex- 
press assurance that "Her Majesty's Government have not 
recognized, and are not prepared to recognize, the so-called 
Confederate States, as a separate and independent State." 
But Mr. Muir's arrest, (perhaps more justifiable under 
the circumstances than many others,) or, rather, the fact 
that the Federal Government had, in this and other in- 
stances, overturned nearly all Mr. Sumner's principles of in- 
herited British law, and asserted an absolute military 
authorit}^ over liberty and property, created an irritation, 
and produced an impression abroad, as to which these de- 
spatches give no light. It at once destroyed confidence in 
American law, and, in doing so, fatally wounded American 
credit. How far this distrust and irritation were reasonable, 
this is not the place to inquire. The fact is so ; and we but 
note in passing, that the many arrests and seizures which 
were deemed necessary to save the country at home, did it 
irreparable injury abroad. "There is," said Mr. Horsman, 
a liberal opposition member, to his constituents, " what 
seems to us a complete break-down of civil government. 



^"Mr. Bunch to Lord Russell, August 5, 1861. 



56 

There is not a security that was established for liberty of 
speech, writing or motion, which is not swept away." This 
is rather overstated, but still the world regarded it with 
wonder; the Confederate States, in the vigorous language 
of Mr. Davis, "looked on with contemptuous astonish- 
ment" at what was done and submitted to ; and we think 
we may venture to aftirm that the Secretary of the Treasury, 
in the very crisis of his early tinancial operations, felt the 
great support of a foreign credit — the chance for a sale or 
hypothecation of his stocks abroad — dragged from beneath 
him, as faith in American law failed, and his colleagues 
of the State and War Departments were playing with the 
edge-tools of arbitrary arrests, and hurling their bolts at all 
they judged their foes. 

The arrest of Mr. Muir revealed the fact to Mr. Adams 
that France and England had jointly made some advances 
to the Confederate States. Mr. Seward knew it long 
before ; for, as far back as the 15th of June, Lord Lyons 
and M. Mercier made their visit to the Secretary, and com- 
municated, or tried to do so, the intentions of their re- 
spective Governments to act in concert for the future. How 
Mr. Seward received that visit is well known, and need not 
be referred to in detail here. To one portion only, of his 
own account of it, do we allude now. It is the beginning 
and the end of his despatch : 

" On the 15th day of June instant. Lord Lyons, the 
British Minister, and M. Mercier, the French Minister, re- 
siding here, had an appointed interview with me. Each of 
those representatives proposed to read to me an -instruction 
which he had received from his Government, and to deliver 
me a copy, if I should desire it. I answered that, in the 
present state of the correspondence between their respective 
Governments and that of the United States, I deemed it 
my duty to know the characters and effects of the in- 
structions respectively, before I could consent that they 
should be officially communicated to this department. The 



57 

Ministers, therefore, confidentially and very frankly, sub- 
mitted the papers to me, for preliminary inspection. After 
having examined thoni so far as to understand their pur- 
pose, I declined to hear them read, or to receive official 
notice of ihem." 

It then conclndcs, sharply enough, with a fling at both : 
" Hoping to have no occasion hereafter, to speak for the 
hearing of fiiendly nations, upon the topics which I have 
now discussed, I add a single remark by way of satisfying 
the British Government that it will do wisely by leaving us 
to manage and settle this domestic contro^'crsy in our own 
way. The fountains of discontent in any society are many, 
and some lie much deeper than others. Thus far, this un- 
happy controversy has disturbed only those wdilch are 
nearest the surface. There are others, which lie still 
deeper, that may yet remain, as we hope, long undisturbed. 
If they should be reached, no one can tell how or when they 
could be closed. It was foreign intervention that opened, 
and that alone could open, similar fountains in the memora- 
ble French Revolution." 

That a Secretary of State may absolutely decline to re- 
ceive a communication, addressed to him in a disrespectful 
or uncourtouQs manner, or even improperly superscribed, or 
sent by an unsuitable messenger, no one can dispute. Na}--, 
further, he would have a perfect right to refuse to listen to 
a paper, unless the promise were given in advance, that a 
copy should be left with him, and this for the obvious 
reason that there would be no security to the listening 
party otherwise. On this point, we put in a note, an 
authority which may not be without interest.* But we 



* Mr. Canning, in a letter to Lord Granville, at Paris, dated March 4, 1825, 
says: "The last three mornings have been occupied partly in receiving the 
three successive communications of Count Lieven, Prince Esterhazy and Baron 
Maltzahn, of the high and weighty displeasure of their courts with respect 
to Spanish America. Lieven led the way on Wednesday. He began lo 

8 



venture to atKnii that no precedent can be found, from the 
days of Frederick of Prussia and JSTapoleon — who were 
very apt to do uncivil and aggravating things to Ministers 
at their Courts — to Mr. Seward's, of a Secretary refusing to 
listen to a paper, when a copy was promised, until he should 
know what its contents were. That this was "frankly" 
and readily acquiesced in, shows no extreme tenaciousness 
on the part of those who sought the audience. We have 
not space to dwell further on the contents and reasoning of 
Mr. Seward's denunciatory letter, but simply note the facts 
connected with it, as items in the great account of mistakes 
and offences, for which, as it seems to us, he is responsible. 
These were the incidents — this the style of correspond- 
ence, antecedent to the 7th of November, when Captain 
Wilkes boarded the Trent and seized the Confederate com- 
missioners and their secretaries. 



open a long despatch, evidently with the intention of reading it to me. I 
stopped in limine, desiring to know if he was authorized to give a copy of it 
He said no ; upon which I declined hearing it, unless he would give me his 
word that no copy would be sent to any other court. He said he could not 
undertake to say that it would not be sent to other Russian missions, but that 
he had no notion that a copy of it would be given to the courts at which they 
were severally accredited. I answered that I was either to have a copy of a 
despatch which might be quoted to foreign courts, (as former despatches had 
been,) as having been communi'iated to me and remaining unanswered ; or to 
be able to say that no despatch had been communicated to me at all ' It was 
utterly impossible for me,' I said, ' to charge my memory with the expressions 
of a long despatch once read over to me, or to be able to judge on one such 
hearing, whether it did or did not contain expressions which I ought not to 
pass over without remark. Yet, by the process now proposed, I was responsi- 
ble to the King and to my colleagues, and ultimately, perhaps, to Parliament, 
for the contents of a paper which might be of the most essentially important 
character, and of which the text might be quoted hereafter by tJiird parties as 
bearing a meaning which I did not on the instant attribute to it, and yet, 
which, upon bare recollection, I could not controvert.' Lieven was con- 
founded. He asked me what he was to do ? I said, what he pleased, but I 
took the exception now before I heard a word of his despatch, because I would 
not have it thought that the contents of the despatch, whatever they might be. 
had anything to do with that exception." 



59 

Of this grave event, in any of its relations of law, of fact, 
of probable consequences, we have neither space nor heart 
to speak. It has been fully discussed. It is too serious in 
its possible future. It is too mortifying in its past. A 
single word is due to candour, and the spirit of frankness 
in which these pages have been written. The act of 
CaptaiD Wilkes was either right or it was wrong. It never 
was heroic, and never would have been called so, out of the 
heated, oratorical atmosphere of Boston, where wise and 
grave and learned men seem more fond of intellectual 
antics than anywhere else; and even atBoston wedid not find 
such men as Winthrop and Appleton and Felton and Hillard 
in the crowd of precipitate enthusiasts. It was either simply 
right or terribly wrong. If right, it ought at all hazards to 
have been maintained the more resolutely, if one tithe of 
Mr. Seward's defiance of England were genuine. If wrong, 
it should have been at once disavowed, gracefully and vol- 
untarily. And let it be borne in mind, when, bye and bye, 
the judgment of history is made up, that had it been disa- 
vowed and the captives been restored, either on account of 
the wrong committed in taking them, or because they are 
"old men," as Mr. Charles Sumner is so fond of describing 
them ; or, because, as Mr. Seward now says, they are 
"valueless," Great Britain would have been absolutely in the 
power of the North, without pretext or excuse, if she 
needed one ; and all our diplomatic gibes and sarcasms 
would have been condoned by this one act of frank self- 
respect and magnanimous self-condemnation. The disa- 
vowal of the attack of the Leopard on the Chesapeake, in 
1807, and the apology made by the English Ministry, post- 
poned war for five long years. We did neither. We hesitated 
about the narrow and simple question of right and wrong, 
and then surrendered under a querulous lawyerising pro- 
test ; and at the moment these lines are written, no one is 
able to say what sort of a future each coming mail from 
Europe may reveal to us. 



60 

The Review of our diplomatic papers is now completed — 
imperfect as the writer feels it to be. Such as it is, ho 
commends it to the generous judgment of his countrymen. 

The challenge was thrown to the people of the North and 
their representatives, when this volume w^as prepared and 
published by the Secretary of State, and when tiie Chief 
Magistrate went into voluntary or involuntary eclipse. It 
has been taken up by one who has no thought, or hope, or 
prayer, but for his country's honor — for reconstruction of 
the Union, if it be possible, and if it be not — for honorable 
peace; and v,'ho, next to disunion and protracted civil 
war, deplores the disparagement of our good name, in 
the estimate of foreign nations. It may be that on the 
judgment and action of those nations, our future maj' de- 
pend, and as to what that future can or ought to be, wise 
and patriotic, and brave, and loyal men may widely difter. 

If, by any method of war, the Government can be 
restored to its condition before this dreadful strife began, 
let us pray for its early consummation, w^ith the least possible 
bloodshed, and with every merciful appliance of pardon, 
and amnesty, and reconciliation, that can be devised; and 
if it cannot — if peace and separation bo inevitable — let us 
hope for the coming man amongst ourselves, who shall 
have mental and moral elevation to see the reality soonest, 
and not shrink from its recognition; who will bend all the 
energies of a great mind, (for such must be his.) to let the 
separation be made without further convulsion or more 
ghastly scars. Let the sorrowing friends of the Union hope 
at least for '■Euthanasia.' Let the Confederacies, if inevitable, 
be the reality of a great poet's idea; 

They parted, ne'er to meet again ! 

But never either found another 

To free the hollow heart from paining, 

They stood aloof, the scars remaining, 

Like cliflFs which had been rent asunder ; 

A dreary sea now flows between ; 

But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, 

Shall wholly do away, I ween 

Tke marka of that which once has been. 



